Switzerland to become the "Metaverse Valley

Virtual reality expert and ETH professor Markus Gross calls for targeted investment in the new technology in a paper.

In recent years, countless companies have sprung up almost unnoticed around the cities of Zurich and Lausanne, developing technologies for the next stage of the internet: the metaverse. Tech companies are working on internet-enabled glasses that replace smartphones and can be used to project information directly into the environment.

Big players all in Zurich and Lausanne

One example is Facebook, which changed its name to Meta at the end of last year. The American company, which took over the start-up Zurich Eye from ETH Zurich, which specialises in artificial vision, around six years ago, is currently looking for many new employees. The start-up is expected to have 350 employees in Zurich by the end of 2022, as our Report last year. Microsoft also operates a specialised laboratory in this area at ETHZ. Around 25 researchers and engineers are developing various technologies for Microsoft's mixed reality headset HoloLens there.

In 2015, Apple acquired the EPFL start-up Faceshift, which specialises in 3D facial animation. Apple now has its own development team in Zurich and is currently looking for additional employees for the Machine Learning and AI department, as can be seen from the job advertisements on the website. It is also rumoured that Apple is working on something that resembles a headset.

100 million francs in investment funds would be desirable

This concentration makes Switzerland the Mecca of metaverse components: "Technological growth is now at a point where the metaverse is moving from science fiction to reality," says Markus Gross, Head of the Computer Graphics Lab at ETH Zurich and Head of Disney Research Studios.

Now the renowned ETH professor is calling for the country to capitalise on its head start and become a kind of "Metaverse Valley". This is reported the SonntagsZeitung. In a paper, Gross calls for targeted investments of at least 100 million francs: "The Metaverse platforms offer countless third-party suppliers the opportunity to develop apps for all kinds of things. This will create a large, completely new economy."

Source: Personal / 247newsbulletin