Incheon City Launches 'Extended Reality (XR) Metaverse' Project... First Among Local Governments

Incheon Mayor Park Nam-chun is giving a greeting at the 'XR Metaverse Incheon Connection Project' business agreement ceremony on the 9th.
[Photo by Incheon City]

[Asia Economy Reporter Park Hyesook] Incheon City is set to actively promote the extended reality (XR) metaverse project, becoming the first local government to do so.

The metaverse is a compound word combining 'meta,' meaning transcendence or virtual, and 'universe,' referring to the real world, signifying a three-dimensional virtual world without boundaries between reality and virtuality.

The extended reality metaverse is an on-offline integrated extended reality platform that builds a digital virtual space of the same size as the real world and provides accumulated information to real-world users using XR technology, supporting various services such as tourism, shopping, and convenience.

Last month, the city was selected as the executing agency for the 'XR Metaverse Project' in a public contest by the Ministry of Science and ICT. On the 8th, it signed a business agreement with specialized companies including Naver Labs, SP Technology, Place B, InSignal, and Fenesia Metaverse, kicking off the project.

Participating demand organizations include Incheon International Airport Corporation, Incheon Tourism Organization, and Incheon Transit Corporation, while Incheon Technopark will foster and support regional industries.

The city plans to first build a three-dimensional spatial map of 3.8 million square meters covering Incheon International Airport, Gaehangjang, and Songdo, and operate a living lab to gather opinions from citizens, including socially vulnerable groups such as the visually impaired, to enhance technology satisfaction based on actual users.

Additionally, it will support technology transfer to local companies related to XR metaverse, foster new growth industries in the region, and strengthen the XR ecosystem.

The city will invest 13.87 billion KRW, including 8 billion KRW in national funds, by the end of next year, and plans to receive additional national funding in 2023 based on the project evaluation results.

Mayor Park Namchun stated, "Since we are jointly building the XR metaverse ecosystem with companies possessing the best technology in Korea, we will collaborate well to help the global advancement of Korean technology and strive to foster XR technology-related industries in the Incheon region."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.