China Mobile, that country’s largest wireless carier with over 940 million subscribers, has formed a metaverse industry alliance including some of the biggest names in China-based tech.

As reported by Shanghai Securities News (Chinese), China Mobile announced during Mobile World Congress Shanghai what it calls the ‘China Mobile Metaverse Industry Alliance’, something the company says will be “the world’s strongest metaverse circle of friends.”

At MWC Shanghai, state-owned China Mobile announced the first batch of 24 members of the alliance, including Huawei, Xiaomi, HTC Vive, Unity China, NOLO, XREAL (formerly Nreal), AI company iFlytek, video streaming platform MGTV, and cloud streaming platform Haima Cloud.

Image courtesy China Mobile

Main objectives include improving the state of metaverse development in China, sharing resources to deepen cooperation between the companies, and developing a “win-win concept” to share the new dividends of the digital economy. China Mobile additionally announced a member alliance fund that will support outstanding metaverse projects as well as R&D for both hardware and XR content creation.

At the MWC Shanghai press conference, Zhao Dachun, deputy general manager of China Mobile, said that the metaverse represents a new opportunity for trillions of yuan (hundreds of billions of USD) and “an important carrier to accelerate the construction of digital China and realize the digital economy.”

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China Mobile isn’t new to the space. In 2018, China Mobile partnered with HTC to “accelerate the proliferation of 5G infrastructure and devices in China” and provide HTC with greater push to get its VR devices into more retail channels.

In 2021, the company launched its own XR interoperability standard called GSXR (General Standard for XR), which included support from many of the companies listed above in addition to Pico, Rokid, Oppo, Baidu, Tencent, China Telecom, and Skyworth.

Migu, China Mobile’s streaming content subsidiary, has also recently built a new ‘Metaverse Headquarters’ in Xiamen, China. There, the company says it will leverage 5G and XR technologies to help build Xiamen into “high-quality, high-value, modern and international” city with digital intelligence, China Daily reports.

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Scott Hayden
Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 4,000 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • another juan

    good news. it would be a shame if next generation devices would end up in an american-government-controlled-duopoly again. the more alternatives, the better for consumers.

  • Anonymous

    China has no place in metaverse. Fucking wake up please HTC and Unity.

    • kool

      Show me, on the Teddy Bear where China touched you…

      • Anonymous

        How much did you get paid by your CCP overlords today? Let me guess, 5 cents?

    • Philip Wang

      The fact that you don’t show the user name, shows me that you are very afraid your own government is tracking you.

  • Jonathan Winters III

    Ah, a communist government-owned initiative. Making sure they have full digs on the future to control their people even more.

    • Philip Wang

      Ah, you still think it is a communist government. Good, keep living under the rock and never wake up.

      • Jonathan Winters III

        Communist in all but name.

      • Jonathan Winters III

        Don’t take it personally. It’s not a dig against Chinese people. It’s a comment about the regime in power in China, where human rights are grossly undermined.