South Korea’s Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) announced that it had established the Metaverse Alliance. The metaverse is a collaborative digital space that enables users to interact with one another using virtual reality (VR) technologies. Over the recent years, metaverse has gained considerable traction due to the booming demand for shared 3D virtual environment systems.
During the inauguration ceremony at the ICT & Culture Convergence Center, MSIT shared the Metaverse Alliance’s numerous development projects. Some of the Metaverse Alliance members include multiple private companies, research teams, government agencies, telecom operators, and other related organizations. The newly formed alliance also consists of industry-leading domestic companies, including Hyundai Motor, Kakao Entertainment, KT, LG Uplus, Lotte World, and Naver Labs.
Cultivating the South Korean Metaverse Ecosystem
Following the fast-growing South Korean metaverse ecosystem, the parties involved formed the association to cultivate corresponding solutions and services. The Metaverse Alliance’s formation is also in line with South Korea’s Digital New Deal. As a result, the association became a vital part of the government’s plan to develop a virtually convergent economy.
Furthermore, the public-private partnership’s members would work together to establish the Metaverse Hub. It is a digital space based on augmented, virtual, and extended reality content, where users could carry out everyday entertainment activities, economic tasks, and more. In addition to sharing metaverse industry trends and exchanging related technologies, the Metaverse Alliance would form an advisory group. This advisory group would then settle issues to allow smooth operation and create a cooperative system.
“The Metaverse Alliance works to discover and support metaverse as a new business,” said Cho Kyung-Sik, Second Vice Minister of MSIT. Cho also stated that one of the association’s principal goals is to create a large-scale metaverse ecosystem through cooperation. Additionally, Cho called metaverse the ‘next-generation platform revolution’ that would take over the Internet and mobile.
The Metaverse Hub primarily aims to provide a cooperation platform wherein companies and developers could develop creative and innovative solutions. The public-private partnership would create an ecosystem in which various companies and entities could coexist. It would also ensure that no company monopolizes the metaverse space. Lastly, industry estimates predict that the metaverse market could reach around 317 trillion won ($281 billion) in sales by 2025.
