The emergence of the industrial metaverse has accelerated the transformation and upgrading of Chinese manufacturing to Chinese smart manufacturing.

而工业元宇宙的出现为中国制造向中国智造转型升级增添了加速度。

“The Industrial Metaverse Empowers the Comprehensive Upgrade to Smart Manufacturing,” People’s Posts and Telecommunications News, April 8, 2022

Executive Summary

An April 2022 report in People’s Posts and Telecommunications News presents the industrial metaverse as a potential future form of smart manufacturing. Its promise depends on stronger digital infrastructure and supporting technologies. The distinction matters: the industrial metaverse is an application vision, while New Type Infrastructure supplies essential foundations for its development.

The Infrastructure Behind the Industrial Metaverse

The industrial metaverse is the future of smart manufacturing in China, according to an April 8, 2022 report in the PRC Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) – run media outlet, People’s Posts and Telecommunications News. The report cautions, however, that China has much work to do, particularly in constructing more digital infrastructure to reach that goal.

The report highlights that “BMW has introduced the NVIDIA Omniverse platform … and Boeing plans to build a virtual 3D digital twin of aircraft in the metaverse” and concludes that “this is the future form of smart manufacturing.”

Principal among China’s shortcomings to achieve smart manufacturing is the need to “accelerate the construction of New Type Infrastructure and strengthen research into foundational technologies (基础技术研究) such as cloud computing, big data, and artificial intelligence.”

The industrial metaverse was not a named category in the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) April 2020 classification of New Type Infrastructure. Several enabling technologies, however, fall within that framework.

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