What is the metaverse and why is everyone talking about it?
The rapid development of digital technologies in recent years has led to a phenomenon known as the metaverse. This term describes a virtual reality where users can interact in digital worlds through avatars. It is a merging of virtual and physical realities, enabled by technologies such as Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR). While many see the metaverse as a playground for social interactions and entertainment, there is a deeper revolution happening in the industrial sector. This is where the Industrial Metaverse is emerging. Companies like Siemens are using the metaverse to create digital twins of their physical products and systems, simulate complex production lines, and develop virtual training environments. It marks a new era of Industry 4.0, where physical and digital worlds are more closely linked than ever to optimize processes and drive innovation.
But this technology can also enable a variety of experiences in other areas:
the digital economy
Social interaction
The metaverse offers a digital meeting place where geographical boundaries become irrelevant. Users can visit social venues such as cafes, conferences, or concerts. Interaction in the metaverse can be just as profound and meaningful as in the physical world. It also allows for relationships to be maintained in a new dimension and provides a platform for community activities, discussions, and networking.
Games and Entertainment
Video games are just the beginning of what is possible in the metaverse. Immersive worlds offer a platform for users to experience complex stories, solve puzzles, and compete with others. Additionally, entertainment can be made more interactive and personalized, with users often playing the main role in their own stories.
Education and creativity
The metaverse serves not only as an extended classroom but also as a platform for creative expressions and the trade of NFTs. Educational institutions can create virtual spaces that simulate the benefits of physical interaction while providing access to global resources and experts. Students can take virtual excursions to historical sites or collaborate with professionals from around the world. At the same time, the metaverse offers artists a new dimension of representation. They can present interactive artworks and sell them as NFTs, giving their creations a unique digital value. Viewers can immerse themselves directly in these artworks, purchase them, and store them in their own digital collections. This combines learning, creative creation, and innovative NFT trade in an inclusive, immersive educational and cultural landscape.
Travel, exploration, and digital wellbeing
The metaverse allows users to explore places that are either realistically recreated or entirely fantastical, without physical limitations. These virtual journeys can provide not only education and entertainment but also contribute to digital wellbeing. At a time when digital fatigue from constant connectivity is a growing concern, such explorations in the metaverse can serve as therapeutic breaks. It offers spaces for relaxation, meditation, and mindfulness, promoting mental wellbeing in the digital age. This balance between exploration and wellbeing demonstrates how the metaverse can enrich daily digital life while protecting users’ mental health.
Overall, the metaverse offers a wealth of opportunities and experiences that are made possible only through the combination of technology and human creativity. It emerges as a new frontier of digital experience, continuously growing and evolving.
In the industry, the industrial metaverse is unfolding, revolutionizing production processes and product development. Through the use of virtual reality and digital twins, companies optimize their operations and expand their possibilities. At the same time, the general metaverse offers a dynamic, ever-growing digital experience landscape through the combination of technology and creativity.
Digital twins
In the world of the industrial metaverse, digital twins play a central role. These are virtual replicas of physical machines and systems. These digital representations enable companies like Siemens to monitor the condition and performance of their facilities in real time. With such twins, maintenance needs can be predicted or potential faults diagnosed before they become real problems. This helps prevent unexpected breakdowns and costly repairs.
Our case on this topic:
Virtual training and educational environments
The technology of the metaverse can be used to create realistic training environments in virtual reality. Siemens employees, for example, could be trained on machines or specific processes without any physical risk or the need to reserve real machines for training. This allows for not only safer but also more efficient and cost-effective training.
Our case on this topic:
Remote collaboration and support
With advancing globalization and the proliferation of technologies, remote work is becoming increasingly relevant. Through augmented reality technologies, Siemens technicians can receive remote support for repairs or maintenance. Experts can provide real-time instructions or point out specific areas using virtual markers. Additionally, globally distributed teams can collaborate through virtual 3D meetings, as if they were in the same room.
Optimization of production lines
The ability to simulate production lines in the metaverse offers Siemens an invaluable resource for identifying inefficiencies or bottlenecks. Imagine being able to test changes in a virtual production line and observe their impacts in real time. This not only reduces the costs associated with physical modifications but also accelerates the process of optimization and adaptation.
Our case on this topic:
More on the topic of the industrial metaverse directly at Siemens:
Metaverse Glossary
Definition:
Artificial Intelligence (AI) describes intelligent actions performed by machines, distinguishing it from natural intelligence found in humans and animals. An AI-enabled machine can perceive its environment and take deliberate actions that go beyond mere programmed behaviors. While various technologies have been employed for AI in the past, machine learning (ML) currently dominates, utilizing deep neural networks.
Value in the Metaverse:
The industrial metaverse serves as a space for training and validation, generating synthetic data to support AI-based systems such as autonomous driving. Additionally, AI is used to create intelligent and automated agents, including human avatars and robots, enabling interaction and communication. Ultimately, AI is a critical technology for creating realistic VR and AR renderings and simulations in real time, making the metaverse a reality.
Augmented Reality (AR) is a fascinating technology capable of enriching our real environment with digital information. AR expands our view of the world by integrating digital visual, auditory, and other sensory elements into our physical reality. Thus, AR creates an augmented world that was previously unknown to us.
Definition:
Virtual reality (VR) represents a digital replica of a real space, which can also depict an alternative reality or combine both. Users can explore the virtual space from their own home, workplace, or even from a factory floor.
Value in the Metaverse:
The world of virtual reality offers revolutionary opportunities to connect people and spaces without physical limitations. By immersing themselves in the VR world, users can interact with objects and other users within this digital space. Common devices for a 3D experience include VR headsets, while interaction with the VR space is typically achieved through VR controllers. In the industrial world, the use of VR in conjunction with digital twins and avatars enables user collaboration for a variety of purposes such as training, design reviews, simulations, and inspections. This technology heralds an era of potentially “contactless” or “smart” manufacturing and maintenance in highly optimized and efficient factories and workshops.
Definition:
Web 3.0 marks a significant step in the evolution of the World Wide Web and the internet as a whole. The future brings increased decentralization of resources and management, granting users greater control. The focus is on creating an open and transparent ecosystem that prioritizes user interests. This new paradigm of Web 3.0 offers users greater autonomy and enhanced privacy. A significant advantage is the ability to operate independently of centralized gatekeepers and intermediaries, improving the user experience and opening up opportunities for innovative applications and business models. Web 3.0 is thus a crucial step towards a more democratic and equitable internet landscape.
Value in the Metaverse:
Web 3.0 and the metaverse are closely linked. Web 3.0 forms the foundation for an open, cooperative, and interoperable metaverse, where users become owners of digital assets and can share and trade them with others. By decentralizing certain aspects of the metaverse, user-friendliness and experience are optimized, clearly differentiating it from the centralized data and content approach of Web 2.0. Another key feature of Web 3.0 is the use of blockchain technology and token-based cryptocurrency economies, ensuring higher data security and scalability for users.
Definition:
Digital representations of unique physical or digital assets are known as non-fungible tokens (NFTs). These are verified and secured by blockchain technology and can be transferred to other users. Each NFT is digitally unique and represents a specific entity, even if these entities have similar characteristics. NFTs, stored on a blockchain, have an associated audit trail that tracks their lifecycle from creation to transfer and burning (the end of the lifecycle)…
Value in the Metaverse:
Digital twins, also known as DTs, are a central component of the metaverse. NFTs enable new business models by facilitating the trading of digital twins and allowing a combination of physical assets with NFTs. They add value in the various phases of the lifecycle of DTs, offering the option to expand, develop, and combine existing DTs into a new object. NFTs represent a revenue model for the metaverse and significantly shape the virtual market. They give content creators unprecedented power and provide a way to prove the existence and authenticity of content in the metaverse.
Definition:
Extended Reality, also known as XR, encompasses a variety of technologies including Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), and Mixed Reality (MR). Depending on the application, these technologies can be used to make digital twins accessible in an industrial metaverse. This can be particularly advantageous for team collaboration and process optimization. XR thus opens up new possibilities for connecting the digital and physical worlds and creating innovative solutions.
Value in the Metaverse:
XR plays a central role in linking various technologies, industries, and solutions within the metaverse. It is an indispensable component for any application in the metaverse. In industrial applications, XR offers enhanced opportunities for interacting with digital twins and presenting complex DT data in an understandable way. The immersive XR functionality also provides a richer experience, typically leading to better outcomes and improved collaboration across disciplines, especially in training or instructional scenarios. XR also enables the connection of real and virtual worlds, allowing component simulations to be linked with a physical asset. This way, the behavior of a future or hypothetical system configuration can be visualized.
