Shanghai, China’s most populous city and financial hub, has unveiled an ambitious plan to develop its culture and tourism metaverse projects. By the close of 2025, the city expects to build an industry that generates annual revenues of 50 billion yuan ($6.9 billion). This initiative is part of the city’s broader strategy to tap into the metaverse technology, which it has identified as a significant driver of economic development.
With a population of approximately 29 million, Shanghai plans to construct 30 culture and tourism metaverse projects by 2025. The city’s municipal administration of culture and tourism detailed its focus on smart tourism, virtual performances, digital artwork, and more. A key component of the project includes merging metaverse technologies with Shanghai’s real-world tourist attractions. Visitors will have the opportunity to interact with the city’s sites through augmented reality, guided by avatars, and enjoy a variety of other metaverse-based services.
Furthering its commitment to the digital realm, Shanghai intends to foster the development of digital artworks on blockchains. The city aims to explore the integration of these artworks on platforms such as video games and extend support to metaverse entertainment businesses, including ventures into virtual idols. The plan identifies blockchain, extended reality, and artificial intelligence as the primary technologies essential for metaverse development. It also highlights a project aimed at building a consortium blockchain ecosystem and standard to enhance the interoperability of on-chain digital artworks.
However, the culture and tourism sector is only a slice of Shanghai’s metaverse vision. As of July 2022, Shanghai has spotlighted metaverse technology as one of three “new tracks” in its economic blueprint, alongside intelligent terminals and low-carbon industries. By the end of 2025, the city expects to construct a metaverse industry that churns out annual revenue of 350 billion yuan ($52 billion) and intends to establish a $1.4 billion metaverse industrial fund.
Shanghai is not alone in its metaverse pursuits. Various Chinese cities and provinces, including Nanjing, Zhengzhou, and Hangzhou, have also publicized plans or policies for metaverse development this year. Beyond commerce and entertainment, policy makers are exploring applications of metaverse technology in public services and administration. For instance, the Ministry of Education in China has proposed potential use cases such as virtual classrooms and storing student qualifications on-chain as non-fungible tokens. These innovative ideas represent a larger trend towards a digital, interconnected future that blurs the boundaries between the physical and virtual world.
