The European Commission predicted that the “extended reality” technology, which enables individuals to interact with virtual environments, to generate up to 860,000 jobs in Europe by 2025.
Extended reality, also known as XR, is a general name for immersive technologies such as mixed reality, augmented reality and virtual reality. Commission claimed on July 11, XR is a “major innovation driver” for virtual worlds.
“The impact on jobs is anticipated to be very significant,” the report stated, stressing that another 1.2 million to 2.4 million jobs will be either directly or indirectly generated in other sectors by 2025.
The Commission did observe that South Korea, China, and the United States currently account for the majority of the Metaverse’s innovation.
Contrary to these nations, the EU lacks IT massive corporations to provide funding for the creation of virtual worlds during the following ten years.
Gaming, media, and entertainment make up the majority of the AR/VR industry activity in Europe, but there is “quite scope” for other applications, such as healthcare, military and defence, retail and manufacturing.
The Commission stated that one of the technologies enabling the “next generation” of the internet, or Web 4.0, where physical and digital items interact in virtual settings in real time, is the creation of virtual worlds, made possible by these XR devices.
“Web 4.0, a significant technical shift, is only getting started. The report stated that Virtual worlds are a key Web 4.0 enabler that can fundamentally transform how people live their daily lives and open up an array of opportunities in many commercial and industrial ecosystems.
Virtual worlds can be used to train surgeons for difficult medical operations. Utilising “digital twins” to safeguard historically significant structures or even 3D models to combat global warming are a few examples.
The Commission outlined its strategy for becoming a “world leader” in Web 4.0 and Metaverse in the working document it submitted to the European Parliament.
European Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton announced, “Today, Europe throws its hat in the ring to emerge as the global leader in Web 4.0 and virtual worlds.”
The Commission has suggested a total of ten initiatives to accomplish this, such as bringing specialists into the domain, establishing regulatory sandboxes to test new concepts, and establishing international standards for interoperable metaverses.
Breton continued, “Europe has what it takes to drive the next technology revolution: creative start-ups, rich creative content and industrial applications, an essential position as an international standard-setter, and an innovation-friendly and stable legislative environment.”
