East China’s Jiangxi Province is becoming an emerging powerhouse for the country’s virtual reality (VR) industry, as leading firms, specialists, and innovation resources have gravitated to this land, the Provincial Industry and Information Technology Commission told People’s Daily Online this week.
China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announced Monday that it approved the establishment of three new national manufacturing innovation centers, one of which is backed by research or tech firms in Jiangxi with VR as its focus.
More favorable policies will be implemented as the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China closed last month, with a chartered road map for accelerating the digital economy and building an internationally competitive digital industry cluster.
An upcoming spotlight event is the 2022 World Conference on the Virtual Reality (VR) Industry, to be held from Nov. 12 to 13 in its provincial capital, Nanchang.
Themed “VR Adorns the World, VR Brightens the Metaverse,” the event launches two new summits this year featuring metaverse and industrial and supply chains separately.
In addition, six innovative application scenarios will be put into place, including a metaverse venue, virtual host “Jiang Xiaowei”, augmented-reality live navigation, an opening speech with special effects and VR live broadcast, for online and offline participants to explore an immersive experience.
Since the event was first initiated in 2018, Jiangxi has seen a boom in the VR industry. The aggregate operating revenue of local VR and related industries rocketed from 4.2 billion yuan (around 583 million US dollars) to 60.4 billion yuan (about 8.38 billion US dollars) in 2021. The figure reached 35 billion yuan (about 486 million US dollars) in the first half of this year, up more than 30% year-on-year, and is expected to exceed 80 billion yuan (about 11.1 US dollars) in 2022.
The province now hosts more than 400 VR firms, including industrial giants Huawei, Alibaba, Tencent, Microsoft, Qualcomm, Ziguang, and Hikvision.
Official figures showed that 18 of the country’s top 50 VR firms have settled in Jiangxi. With many VR hardware manufacturers swarming in, a complete industrial chain has taken shape, making it much easier for upstream and downstream firms to seek synergy in business development and innovation.
Apart from the annual conference, institutional arrangements and policy support also serve as the big catalyst for the province’s VR boom.
To foster a sound ecology for VR firms to thrive and flourish, Jiangxi has selected and released provincial-level VR application demonstration projects for two consecutive years, and organized roadshows for VR application projects.
