China Baidu launches Metaverse app to lead the race

On December 27th, 2021, Baidu's AI products were shown at the company's annual conference.

Chinese internet giant Baidu unveiled their metaverse app - which was used to host the company's annual developer conference - on Monday.

This is seen as part of the country's wider effort to enter the global race for supremacy in next-generation technology.

Whoever takes the lead in creating a metaverse will have a huge advantage over the other players.

Baidu (百度), known for its expertise in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and autonomous driving, unveiled Xirang (西柒), literally "land of hope."

The three-day conference, started on Monday, can be attended via the Xirang app. This enables a whopping 100,000 people to attend from anywhere in the world.

There are around 100 speakers so far and according to the company, it's China's first of its kind virtual reality education platform.

They won't be able to fully explore it, but users can login and explore without the need of a VR headset. 

They created a rotating joint virtual surface (like a Möbius strip) which looks like planet Earth and lets participants interact with each other.

The participants will be able to interact with other attendees via conference PCs, smart phones or wearable devices.

Metaverse is created for: an alternate reality where you can experience anything without any limitations.

It is a 3D persistent online virtual model of reality.

The Metaverse is a collection of computer-generated virtual worlds that exist within a shared space.

It is an incredible rise considering it was only valued at five billion US dollars in 2021.

The metaverse industry is estimated to be valued at more than 12 billion US dollars by 2024.

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