Top Japanese mobile carrier NTT Docomo said that it will move into the industrial Metaverse in the upcoming few years by offering design and other tools powered by its own wireless technology, CEO Motoyuki Ii told sources.
It was hinted that Metaverse is a post smartphone move.
“Games have driven the metaverse so far, but industrial applications will grow in the future,” Motoyuki Ii stated.
He mentioned that Japanese companies have lagged international peers in staking claim to the Metaverse.
For Docomo, the metaverse offers a chance to diversify. Docomo wants to have operations beyond its core telecom business by stepping into the metaverse, accounting for at least 50% of sales by fiscal 2025.
The president of Docomo’s parent company NTT, Jun Sawada, views the Metaverse as the group’s next chief business.
“We need to plan for the post-smartphone era,” Sawada said.
Docomo is going to work with partners including startups to develop the industrial Metaverse tools. They will be made accessible to a broad range of large and even small businesses.
By October, the firm plans to create a company with about 150 engineers and other staff to begin the project.
For its metaverse tools, Docomo plans a virtual space where engineers in remote locations can come together and utilize the tools to collaboratively develop products or test prototypes. These services also will support augmented reality, in which real-world objects will be enhanced via pop-up data.
The tools are aimed to help manufacturers overcome staff shortages and pass on skills from expert workers to a new generation.
There is a fierce competition in VR goggles and other wearables, with giants like Facebook parent Meta and Apple. But bulky VR equipment has yet to reach the mainstream market. Ii said that Docomo plans to give “user-friendly devices that are comfortable,” including lightweight VR goggles.
Docomo’s industrial Metaverse ambitions will develop on the Innovative Optical and Wireless Network (IOWN) which is being developed by the entire NTT Group.
IOWN aims optical signals replacing electrical ones as carriers of data via networks. This would multiply data transfer capacity by a factor of 125, while decreasing latency as well as power usage by factors of 200 and 100, respectively, as per Docomo.
NTT is developing proprietary semiconductor devices through the use of this technology, which will make possible compact as well as lightweight VR equipment.
Docomo has a Metaverse business for the consumer market already. The firm in March created XR World, where participants can experience concerts and other events as well. Users are allowed to enter the platform through smartphones and PCs without relying on any VR goggles.
According to Canadian analytics firm Emergen Research, the Metaverse market will grow to $828 billion by 2028, about 20 times its current size.While the Metaverse market rises, Japan’s firms are trying to get a massive profit by being the early adopters of the technology. Recently, Japan’s tech giant Sony revealed it plans to get ready to play a crucial role in the Metaverse revolution.
