As VR and AR are booming this year, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) and China’s state news agency Xinhua News’s website are planning to formulate national and industrial standards for VR and AR to boost the development of VR/AR technology in China.
According to Chinese research company iResearch, the scale of the Chinese VR market was RMB 1.5 billion (USD 230 million) in 2015, and it is expected to reach RMB 5.6 billion in 2016. By 2020, its scale is forecasted to exceed RMB 55 billion.
To promote VR/AR development in China, last Friday, China’s Electronics Standardization Institute under MIIT and Xinhua began to solicit public opinions on VR/AR standards.
On the same day, Xinhua launched its VR/AR channel on its website. Actually, Xinhua has already made several moves in the VR field. During China’s annual parliamentary meetings this year, Xinhua set up a column on its website using VR to report on them.
In addition, Xinhua has built a team focusing on the research and development of VR and AR. To date, it has developed two products for corporate-level clients.
At the conference on Friday, Mo Wei, the general office director of MIIT, said it is meaningful to promote standards for VR/AR. He also gave some advice on encouraging creativity, integrating resources, and providing more VR-related services to accelerate VR development in China.
Due to the panoramic view and immersive experience of VR technology, many media outlets across the world, like the New York Times, are exploring the usage of VR in news. Chinese media outlets Caixin Group and Sina News have also launched their own VR projects.
(Top photo from Baidu Images.)
