Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Under the meta-universe craze, VR / AR enterprises are moving towards a new round of tuyere.

However, in an interview with the media, Xu Chi, founder and CEO of Nreal, prefers to call it the space Internet. He believes that from the Internet to the mobile Internet, the next 15 years will be the era of the space Internet, and there will also be a new digital terminal AR glasses.

Xu Chi predicts that 1 billion AR glasses will be worn on consumers around the world by 2030, which may surpass that of smartphones. In addition, he believes that compared with China following Apple in the smartphone era, it is expected to take the lead in AR glasses, with Chinese companies defining terminals, software experiences, and even business models.

The size of AR glasses in the space Internet era will surpass that of mobile phones in Xu Chi's view, from the Internet to the mobile Internet, we have made the volume of the Internet particularly large, but we have compressed it into a two-dimensional screen, while AR and VR will once again upgrade the Internet into a spatial Internet, that is, the era of spatial Internet.

"in the next 15 years, many people will call it meta-universe, but we think it may be more appropriate to call it the space Internet." Xu Chi said that just as people get information through smartphones in the mobile Internet era, the space Internet era will also produce new terminals to interact with 3D Internet information, which is called AR glasses.

The reason he gave is that the trend of terminals must be to get closer and closer to people in order to get more and more convenient to access Internet information. What is closer to people than a mobile phone? It's AR glasses, and this is the last screen humans need before the brain implants a chip. When the screen of the glasses is displayed, the computer screen and mobile phone screen, including the TV screen, are all at a further distance.

However, Xu Chi believes that if AR glasses are to be used as independent terminals, the underlying communication 5G may not be enough, and we still need to make a slow transition to that stage. Nreal's solution is to connect the phone through a cable, making use of the phone's computing and battery, so that the content on the phone can be moved to the user's eyes with this wire to enhance the experience.

"We think that the first step of commercialization is how to make good use of the resources of today's mobile Internet. Therefore, the first thing should be the spatialization of the mobile Internet, rather than the spatial Internet in one step." He said that the 3D dimension of content is not achieved overnight, with more and more 3D material content, the introduction of complex 3D interaction, and finally to achieve the ultimate form of the virtual and real space Internet.

At that time, more and more computing can be put on the cloud, and AR glasses will also transition from wired to wireless to achieve a more lightweight form. His prediction is that it can be done within five years.

Xu Chi also predicts that by 2030, there will be 1 billion glasses on people's heads around the world, and the size of the entire AR will surpass that of mobile phones.

Chinese companies are expected to lead Apple Tianfeng International analyst Guo Mingyi predicted in a research report that Apple plans to launch its AR / VR headset in January 2023. Apple's entry is also expected to promote the large-scale popularity of AR glasses.

However, Xu Chi believes that in the last 15 years, it was Apple that defined the smartphone era, and China is in a state of following. this time, China will take the lead in participating in the terminal, experience definition and even business model of the industry in an unprecedented way.

"in terms of supply chain resources, talent reserves, relevant policies and its own market, this market is not only the Chinese market, but also the global market, so that we can expand quickly once we do the right thing." Xu Chi said that in AR glasses, Chinese companies no longer need to adopt the Copy to China model, but become the fastest and best first place, and the change of platforms is no longer necessarily decided by Apple.

Judging from the current situation, Chinese manufacturers have indeed achieved the lead in AR glasses. According to the latest Strategy Analytics report, the revenue of the consumer AR device market tripled from 2020 to 2021, with shipments up 161 per cent year-on-year. The market share of Chinese brand Nreal reached 75% in 2021, rising to 81% in the first half of 2022, making it the largest domestic AR glasses brand by sales in the world.

However, AR glasses to really usher in the inflection point, there are still a series of challenges.

Xu Chi said frankly that China still needs to carry out a series of discontinuous innovations in the underlying technology, including chips, optics, vision, edge computing, etc., as well as more virtual and real Internet applications.

He revealed that Nreal will release new AR glasses to the Chinese market on August 23 to achieve more connections and adapt to more devices; work with Super App to launch more AR content; and build a 3D experience in car scenes.

"in the next five years, what we want to build is the brand of NO.1, at least in global start-ups, so that when people hear about AR, the first thing that comes to mind is not Apple, but Nreal." He said.

However, to achieve this goal, apart from Apple, Nreal faces a large number of domestic competitors. For example, Xiaomi, OPPO, vivo and other domestic mobile phone manufacturers have a layout of AR glasses, Luo Yonghao also announced to enter the AR industry.

"teacher Luo chose a very sunrise industry this time," Xu joked. The current AR industry is still very early. Nreal welcomes co-creation and competition to make the industry bigger, rather than worrying about competition. "because competition will bring continuous innovation, to polish better products, and finally make the industry up quickly, which is what we really want to see."

"SA: the market for consumer AR head display devices tripled from 2020 to 2021, with Nreal at the top of the list."

Welcome to subscribe "Shulou Technology Information " to get latest news, interesting things and hot topics in the IT industry, and controls the hottest and latest Internet news, technology news and IT industry trends.