Facebook to expand Zurich location for VR and AR development

Facebook wants to expand its Zurich location. According to "a well-informed source", the workforce is to be expanded by around 150 jobs. The offices on Giesshübelstrasse at the foot of the Üetliberg can currently accommodate 200 people, of which 50 jobs are currently still being advertised. However, the project has not yet been officially confirmed by the US tech company.

"The Zurich office is - also due to our development focus on AR and VR there - an important driver for the innovative capacity of our company and will continue to gain in importance for us," said DACH CEO Tino Krause at the time.

According to the report, Facebook employees in Zurich will continue to devote themselves to the topics of augmented and virtual reality - but especially to the idea of the metaverse. The term comes from the 1992 science fiction novel "Snow Crash" by author Neal Stephenson and describes, to a certain extent, the fusion of physical, augmented and virtual reality in a shared online space.

For example, Facebook wants to bring together employees of a company in a virtual meeting room - no matter where they are at the moment. They are represented by an avatar and can interact with each other. Facebook calls the first development in this area "Horizon Workrooms".

Company boss Mark Zuckerberg has high expectations for the metaverse. In the summer, he spoke to the tech portal "The Verge" in this context of the "successor to the mobile internet".