Aiming to become a hub for AR and VR development, the government of China’s Jiangxi province says it plans to raise funds totalling $460 million to be invested into AR and VR companies.

Last week the first ever World Conference on VR Industry event was hosted in Nanchang, the capital city of Jiangxi, China, which reportedly attracted 2,000 attendees. The event was sponsored by the province government’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Hoping to attract VR and AR companies, talent, and general interest in the technology to Nanchang, the government announced during the event plans to raise $460 million across several funds for investing in VR and AR.

According to our friends at Yivian, a VR news publication based in China, the capital will be split between a $28.8 million VR/AR industry angel VC fund focused on incubation, a $144 million parent fund, and a $287.9 million industrial investment fund aimed at toward the AR/VR enterprise space.

Some strings are attached—as the funds are ultimately designed to make Nanchang a hub for AR/VR development and talent, the funds will likely require that any investment recipients have some portion of their business based in Nanchang.

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Nanchang isn’t the first Chinese city to seek to establish itself as a hotbed for this technology. Earlier this year HTC and Shenzhen (in China’s Guangdong province) announced a $160 million joint fund focusing on VR investments.

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Ben Lang
Ben is the world's most senior professional analyst solely dedicated to the XR industry, having founded Road to VR in 2011—a year before the Oculus Kickstarter sparked a resurgence that led to the modern XR landscape. He has authored more than 3,000 articles chronicling the evolution of the XR industry over more than a decade. With that unique perspective, Ben has been consistently recognized as one of the most influential voices in XR, giving keynotes and joining panel and podcast discussions at key industry events. He is a self-described "journalist and analyst, not evangelist."
  • Walextheone

    i for one welcome our new chinese VR overlords

    • Wednaud Ronelus

      LOL,
      I totally agree. The Chinese will win the XR game if America don’t wake up.

      • sfmike

        I totally agree too as hopefully they will not be so constrained by the curse of quarterly profits that threaten to derail VR or any new tech here in what’s left of the USA.

      • Gary

        They won’t win a thing. As a country which lacks information flow due to the restrictive government, their standard of quality compared to the west is so much lower it’s ridiculous. They live in their own little bubble, everything they do is for convenience and face value, yet rarely do they have innovative breakthroughs. I’ve lived in the fast developing city Chengdu for the past 4 years, and this is a worry trend for China. They are super efficient in utilizing existing technologies, but their ignorance and way of life/culture results in a huge lack of creativity and quality standard.

  • Ellon Musk

    if there is anyone who could take VR/AR to new levels, it’s china

    • jj

      if anyone can steal patents and make things for cheaper, its china

      • sfmike

        But no body does it better.

      • If anyone can pay/buy people from poor countries, have them build technology and then claim they made that technology themselves its the U.S.

        Can’t let you have any patents if I bought all of them because I became extremely wealthy from selling weapons while you were at war.

        • jj

          Of course we want to give the less fortunate jobs at our companies….

          Your second comment though doesn’t make any sense.
          Cant let people buy your patents because your rich from selling weapons? was that sarcasm/satire towards how US handles patents mashed with an attempt at a military industry comment?

          Good attempt but thats just a logical fallacy, specifically a straw man argument. We were talking about patents between countries, not military, so making a point about americas military spending was rather far fetched and irrelevant to the points you were trying to make.

          And honestly its not our fault other countries aren’t as successful as other countries, if people want to hire and provide work for poor people in other countries, then they should because its giving them an avenue they didn’t have before.

          anything else?

  • Foreign Devil

    I remember being in CHina in 2008 and 2009 when they did the same for 3D animation. .. bankrolled studios to open up in certain business parks and gave them rent free studios for several years. Mixed results. . . We still don’t have a “Disney” or “Miyazaki” equivalent in China. Companies that start from bottom up are much more resilient. Most of the VR/AR government subsidized startups will fail in a few years.

    • epsilon epsilon

      It’s the economy or maybe there are a lot of little “Disney” instead of one big “Disney” that dominates the market and eats everyone and everythings.