Virtual Reality – Microsoft: Metaverse will conquer the industry

The pandemic not only helped the home office and other variants of the newly organized work finally achieve a breakthrough, said Janik of the German Press Agency.Many companies would therefore have to deal with procedures where certain scenarios are virtually run through before they are implemented in production or product development. “It’s like the industrial metaverse.”

Merging physical and virtual reality
The industry defines the metaverse as a world where physical reality merges with augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) in a cyber world. Important components in this world are also digital currencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, which can be used to buy virtual real estate, digital art, items for games or digital status symbols, among other things.

The term metaverse comes from American author Neal Stephenson, who first used it in his 1992 science fiction novel Snow Crash. In the US, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, in particular, relies on the Metaverse and has therefore renamed the Facebook group Meta.

Janik emphasized that in an industrial metaverse you can achieve things that used to be physically done with considerably more effort. “For example, you can also pre-determine how to replace certain components in production that are not currently available.”

“Metaverse” as a sustainable turbo?
According to Janik, the various crises such as climate change or the Ukraine war are forcing the economy to step up its sustainability efforts. However, according to a study by market researcher YouGov on behalf of Microsoft, every third company, at 31 percent, has not yet made any investments in sustainable technologies. “This shows that good will alone is no longer enough, but that we really have to start doing things to achieve sustainability.”

Digital modeling of products and production processes helps to achieve these sustainability goals. At the same time, processes such as the “digital twin” ensure that innovations can be implemented and brought to market more quickly.

“We now live in a world where risk management plays a very different role and is much more existential than before,” says Janik. It is not only about better estimating risks, but also about acting ahead. “Data can help decisively in this mammoth task.” Microsoft is also addressing the concerns of data protection officers refusing to store data outside of Europe. “We can already limit the storage of customer data to Europe if the customers want it.”