The European Union has presented today its web 4.0 strategy and virtual worlds. With estimates that the size of the global metaverse market will grow from €27 billion in 2022 to €800 billion in 2030, the EU wants to make its mark. In particular, he is concerned that the infrastructure is being developed in the US and China. So you plan to build locally and be a standards maker.

“We will take this competitive advantage to the next level by connecting virtual world developers with industry users, investing in the adoption and scaling of new technologies, and giving people the tools and skills to use virtual worlds safely. and trustworthy,” he said. Thierry Breton, Commissioner for the Internal Market.

As for business support, a Horizon funding program is likely to be launched in 2025. The previous Horizon 2020 program distributed around €75 billion in funding over six years.

A report accompanying the announcement points to a number of US companies working on metaverse technology, including Meta, Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Unity, Roblox, Snap18, and Epic Games. In China, Alibaba, Baidu, NetEase and Bytedance have metaverse strategies and the big three mobile operators have created a metaverse industry committee.

In this context, where is the EU? “Unlike these countries, in the EU there are no technological giants that will lead the investment in the development of virtual worlds during the next decade. However, the EU is strong in research and innovation for middleware and software,” the report says. In addition, it believes that it has an advantage in content diversity, culture and language and has a strong position in games, media and entertainment.

Jobs are also at stake. One estimate predicts that by 2025 Extended Reality (XR) could create new European jobs for 860,000 people in the technology sector. In addition, there could be 1.2 million to 2.4 million new jobs in other sectors, either directly or indirectly.