Vice President Ma Jie gave reporters a preview of how the company will host a developer conference.
While the world has been fascinated by the metaverse this year, one of China's tech giants has revealed a version of the game that is not as good.
The metaverse is a virtual world in which humans interact through three-dimensional avatars. Facebook changed its name to Meta and announced plans for $10 billion in related investments in the next year.
China is also abuzz with metaverse headlines. Beijing-based Baidu plans to hold its annual developers' event on Monday in the virtual world of its metaverse app. The company says it will be China's first metaverse conference.
The executive in charge of XiRang downplayed expectations at a preview event Tuesday, noting how many aspects weren't yet up to par.
Ma Jie, a vice president at Baidu, told reporters in Mandarin that the app is still six years away. Ma struck an apologetic tone, saying that he may not have a very good answer to the question.
At a media event in Beijing on December 21, Ma Jie, a vice president at Baidu, will give a presentation on the company's metaverse plans.
Ma showed reporters a graphic rendering of the virtual stadium that can host 100,000 virtual attendees.
He said that Baidu wants to build an open-source platform for metaverse developers.
Monday is the opening of XiRang to developers in China.
Brian Tycangco, analyst at Stansberry Research, said that the metaverse is still in its infancy. A lot of people don't fully understand what the word means today or in the next few years.
The company has a conservative approach to managing expectations and is aware of the metaverse. Baidu is moving ahead to own the metaverse in its home market while adhering to Beijing's new policies aimed at preventing monopolistic situations.
The Chinese government has cracked down on monopolistic practices by China's internet tech giants with fines and new regulations in the last 18 months. Beijing enacted a new data privacy law. Panelists are trying to address income inequality issues while supporting innovation-driven growth.
In a statement to CNBC, Baidu said that openness is an inherent part of the company and that by promoting open source development, applications can be adopted more widely and quickly.
The company started as an internet search engine and has since focused on cloud computing, artificial intelligence, robotaxis and other technologies.
The internet in China is tightly controlled by the government. The search engine was only in China for a short time.
Analysts disagree on how quickly China's metaverse is compared with the U.S.
The metaverse cloud offerings are promoted on the webpage. In an earnings call in November, Martin Lau said that he expected the Chinese government to support the development of metaverse technologies.
Bill Gates said that most virtual meetings will move to the metaverse in the next two or three years. Facebook announced that it would end its invite-only phase for its virtual reality platform, and that anyone over the age of 18 in the US and Canada would be able to use it. Users can build their own worlds and games in the system.
The six year timetable for Baidu is disappointing to hear for investors and a head scratcher as they will miss out on this massive metaverse market over the coming years. The metaverse will be monetized in 2024 and grow to a larger scale the following year, according to Ives.
On Tuesday, the demos of the XiRang app showed that some people can walk through walls and other objects. The virtual universe would briefly turn black or purple while the system was loaded.
The app can be used to mimic the real world. Video games usually have a map or other features that allow users to quickly jump to other parts of the virtual game space.
According to a visualization shared by reporters on December 21, 2021, the first thing that comes to mind when you think of a metaverse is aCreator City with a tall skyscraper at its center.
Chinese state media have published a number of articles on the topic, often about the risk of scam, while the metaverse discussion captures public attention.
The Chinese government published an article on the global history of the metaverse on Thursday. The piece warned about the need for financial supervision in the virtual world, as well as the risk of metaverse hype by some companies.
Virtual land is an area of speculation.
Even though the underlying technologies are similar to the one used in the blockchain, the XiRang app will not support digital currencies or trading of assets like speculating on virtual property.
He is not the only voice of moderation.
A full metaverse will take at least five to ten years of development, said the president of China at the company. Pieces of the Metaverse will come much sooner.
Graylin said that the main challenge of the full Metaverse is likely to be less about specific technology or products, but more about the underlying infrastructure, international regulatory agreement and global standards. It will take a global effort to deliver on the promise of the Metaverse.
Tax regulation and global coverage for high-speed cloud computing are some of the elements the metaverse needs immediately.
