Tuesday December 21, Baidu a unveiled his metaverse project during a press conference. The Chinese giant has announced that its annual “Create 2021” event will take place in a first version of XiRang, the name given to its metaverse. Baidu specifies that this virtual world is far from over and announces a six-year deadline to refine it.
XiRang: the metaverse according to Baidu
The craze for the metaverse is global. The American, European and Chinese tech giants are looking at what could represent the future of the Internet in the coming years. A few days ago, Baidu unveils its vision of the metaverse to journalists around the world. The Beijing-based company plans to hold its annual developer event in its virtual world, XiRang. Baidu says this will be the first ever such event to be held on the Metaverse in China.
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XiRang’s demonstration allowed to discover some details on the vision of the metaverse according to Baidu. Even if it is not definitive, for the moment the avatars have the possibility to cross the walls, to walk in the street or to take public transport. The virtual world offers a map on which users can navigate very easily from one world to another. In short, a metaverse very close to those unveiled by the Americans.
Why so long?
However, during the press conference on December 21, Baidu metaverse manager Ma Jie was cautious about the matter. According to him, the development of the application started last December, but it will most likely still require “Six years before the launch of a final version”, according to Ma Jie. It remained rather vague on the reasons that could explain this delay. Baidu’s app, as it currently exists, can accommodate 100,000 virtual participants. The “Create 2021” conference will serve as a crash test.
Those six years of work is no surprise for Brian Tycangco, analyst at Stansberry Research. He estimates that “The metaverse, while a buzzword in the global tech community, is still in its infancy. A lot of people don’t even fully understand what this word means today or will mean in the next 3-5 years ”. For him, the American tech giants are getting carried away by promising final versions in the coming years.
The Chinese government’s turn of the screw may be the reason for this delay … Recently, Beijing introduced a new law on personal data. This six-year period is nevertheless disappointing on the investor side. According to Dan Ives, researcher for Wedbush Securities, “This six-year delay worries investors and suggests that Baidu could completely miss this huge metaverse market in the coming years”. The company founded 22 years ago may not have been ambitious enough on the subject.