Entering November, the field of virtual reality frequent good news. November 1, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the State Administration of Radio and Television, the State General Administration of Sports, five departments jointly issued a "Virtual Reality and Industry Application Integration and Development Action Plan (2022-2026)" (hereinafter referred to as the "Action Plan"). The Action Plan puts forward the development goal that by 2026, the overall scale of China's virtual reality industry (including related hardware, software, applications, etc.) will exceed 350 billion yuan, the sales of virtual reality terminals will exceed 25 million units, and 100 backbone enterprises with strong innovation capability and industry influence will be cultivated. After only a week, on November 7, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology approved the formation of the National Virtual Reality Innovation Center, which relies on the Nanchang Virtual Reality Research Institute Co., Ltd. to set up, focusing on the key *** technical problems that constrain the development of China's virtual reality industry, and gradually build an industrial innovation ecosystem covering the entire industry chain of virtual reality, and to promote the high-quality development of China's virtual reality industry.
It should be pointed out that the "virtual reality" in the "Action Plan" does not only refer to the narrow sense of VR, but also includes augmented reality AR, mixed reality MR, in fact, the industry is usually used in the category of extended reality XR. The Action Plan points out that virtual reality is an important frontier direction of the new generation of information technology, is a major prospective area of the digital economy, will profoundly change the way of human production and life, the strategic window for industrial development has been formed.
It is worth noting that the Action Plan is the first policy document issued by the state for the virtual reality industry since the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) was held, and it breaks down the development paths and goals for the next five years. A number of practitioners and third-party experts pointed out in an interview with a reporter from China Business News that from the point of view of the formulation of data targets such as industry scale, terminal shipments, and the cultivation of backbone enterprises, the Action Plan puts forward high requirements for the virtual reality industry, which is both a challenge and an incentive, and injects a shot of accelerant for the industry, thus driving the upstream and downstream ecosystem of the industrial chain to be gradually perfected, and promoting the integration and development of virtual reality and the real economy. The integration of virtual reality and the real economy.
Terminal target refers to 25 million units
The Action Plan puts forward, by 2026, three-dimensional, virtual reality fusion immersive audio-visual key technology breakthroughs, a new generation of adapted virtual reality terminal products are constantly enriched, and the industrial ecology is further improved. Among them, for the "continuous improvement of the industrial ecology", the Action Plan puts forward a clear numerical target, and the target of "virtual reality terminal sales of more than 25 million units" also triggers the industry's attention and discussion.
Established in 2012, augmented reality AR enterprise bright wind platform market ecological vice president Zhang Chunyan pointed out to the reporter, IDC China's report in September, the first half of this year's overall domestic AR / VR market shipments amounted to 586,000 units, to the annual average measurement, the annual shipments may be in the 1.2 million units or so. The Action Plan proposes a target of 25 million units by 2026, "which is equivalent to the industry having to realize a 20-fold growth within five years, which is both a challenge and an incentive for enterprises." Zhang Chunyan further pointed out that this will inevitably lead to the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain to improve the ability of the supply side, and even the emergence of a number of bright performance of the enterprise, but also to attract a greater influx of talent, and so that many of the physical industry and emerging industries to integrate and innovate, to promote the process of the development of the digital economy, and ultimately upgraded layer by layer from the consumer level, industrial level, city level for industry-wide remodeling. I believe this number will be reached.
"The Action Plan is an exciting thing for practitioners, eliminating the outside world's questionable voice on the virtual reality industry, the development of upstream and downstream industry chain has played a supporting and promoting role, the market-oriented value will be released, with virtual reality as the representative of the new track, the new industry will bring new economic vitality and development direction. " Zhang Chunyan said so.
DaPeng VR, which entered the VR field from 2015, completed a new round of tens of millions of yuan of equity financing in June this year. Dapeng VR strategy person in charge told reporters, to achieve the goal of terminal equipment, to achieve such a large-scale leap does have certain difficulties and challenges. 2021, with the "meta universe" concept of the fire, as well as Facebook renamed Meta, byte jumping acquisition of Pico and other domestic and international a series of events, this is the first time in the past few years. It can be said to be an "activation" for the virtual reality industry, which has been rather "cold" in the past few years. With the importance and support of the policy level, Dapeng VR has high hopes for the growth and development of the C-end consumer market this year and in the next few years.
Yan Yang, deputy secretary-general of Zhongguancun Big Data Industry Alliance and member of the Big Data Expert Committee of the Chinese Institute of Electronics, pointed out that virtual reality has been developing in China for several years, and by summarizing the experience of past industrial development, the main significance of the Action Plan lies in promoting the development of the virtual reality industry in the direction of high-quality, which covers the core technology, innovation system, industrial ecology and integrated applications. In terms of virtual reality terminal sales, it is currently in the foundation stage of the 5-year action plan, and many levels are still in the input stage, so all relevant parties should be psychologically prepared in the promotion process.
How to break through the scale of industry applications
The Action Plan puts forward that by 2026, breakthroughs will be achieved in key application areas of virtual reality, such as industrial production, culture and tourism, convergent media, education and training, sports and health, trade and creativity, and smart cities. Carry out 10 types of virtual audio-visual production application demonstration, create 10 "virtual reality +" integration application of leading cities and parks, the formation of at least 20 special application scenes, 100 integration application of pioneering cases.
The co-director of the Digital Economy and Financial Innovation Research Center at the International Joint Business School of Zhejiang University, researcher Pan Hailin believes that the Action Plan puts forward high requirements for China's virtual reality industry, and in order to achieve the goal of 2026, the top-level design level suggests that it should be further clarified from three aspects: first, rationalizing the path of the development of virtual reality, and the scope of virtual reality is broader, and the current VR is biased toward the The consumer side, while AR/MR and other can be applied in the B end, but there is a large technical bottleneck in MR, and VR has a high popularity, but the popularity in industrial applications is not high, and it is necessary to make a more specific development plan based on the current situation. Secondly, it is necessary to promote the progress of the basic technology of virtual reality, and also to improve the degree of autonomy of the technology. In terms of basic technology, MR currently still needs technical investment in optics and microdisplay, and VR still can't reach a perfect balance between arithmetic performance and weight. It is difficult to break through the technology at the enterprise level, and here we need to mobilize the R&D enthusiasm of research institutes and universities. Third, related industries need to be revitalized. Such as VR and MR content production is extremely dependent on 3D modeling tools and software, China's tools and software has made significant progress, but compared with international giants there is still a gap.
This reporter has learned that in recent years, in addition to the sales of terminal equipment in the C-end, virtual reality technology in education, industrial manufacturing, cultural tourism and other aspects of the emergence of typical application cases.
According to Zhang Chunyan, at present, Bright Wind Platform is based on industry, covering intelligent security, intelligent manufacturing, interactive entertainment and other industries, focusing on vertical application scenarios such as on-site experience, remote collaboration, teaching and training, and gradually realizing the construction of hyper-realistic intelligent space. For example, in the field of culture and tourism, such as the museum scene, based on the AR platform HiARSpace, can create immersive exhibition, customers can follow the virtual characters for real-time interaction, realize the intelligent guide, exhibit interaction, etc., to realize the virtual-reality fusion immersive scene interaction. In the field of public **** security, with the help of AR smart glasses, drones and other intelligent terminals, to create a software and hardware integration of public **** security service system, widely used in daily patrols, key areas of security, emergency response, criminal investigation and arrest, event security, and other typical application scenarios; in the field of industry, to provide industrial enterprises with a way to help users to complete their work safely, efficiently and intelligently in industrial environments, around the The life cycle of physical products in all aspects, including design, supply chain, production, marketing, training, after-sales service and other efficiency and cost reduction.
In Yan Yang's view, the Action Plan visualizes the development of the industry, whether it is the five key tasks proposed, or the three major special projects, seven aspects of the safeguards, through the "weaving" to open up the upstream and downstream industrial chain, and accurately cultivate the key areas, so as to form a "big network of industry", not only for the industry, but also for the industry. Industry network", not only to accelerate the layout of the virtual reality industry ecosystem, enhance the ability of independent and controllable, but also focuses on the integration of virtual reality technology and social and economic sectors and innovation, in line with the new round of scientific and technological industrial revolution and the development trend of the digital economy, to provide strong support for the construction of digital China.