‘Extended Reality’ Will Create 860K Jobs By 2025: EU Commission

The European Commission has suggested that “extended reality” – technology that enables people to interact with virtual worlds – will create 860,000 jobs in Europe by 2025.

Extended reality or XR is an umbrella term for immersive technologies including virtual reality, augmented reality and mixed reality, and is a “major technology enabler” for virtual worlds. Said Commission on 11 July.

Europe is in the fray to become the world leader in Web 4.0 and the virtual world.

The new internet will affect the way people live together, bringing many benefits.

And we have to put people at the center and shape it according to our EU digital rights and principles. pic.twitter.com/rc0R3qUm0y

– European Commission (@EU_Commission) 11 July 2023

“The impact on employment is expected to be highly significant,” it said, noting that 1.2 million to 2.4 million jobs would be created directly or indirectly in other sectors by 2025.

However, the commission noted that today, most innovation around the metaverse occurs in the United States, China, and South Korea.

“Unlike these countries, there are no tech giants in the EU to lead investment in the development of virtual worlds over the next decade.”

Most AR/VR market activity in Europe is focused on gaming, media and entertainment, but there is “plenty of room” for other applications including retail, healthcare, military and defense and manufacturing.

The commission said the virtual world enabled by these XR devices is one of the technologies enabling the “next generation” of the World Wide Web – Web 4.0 – where physical and digital objects come together in virtual environments in real time.

“We are at the beginning of a major technological change, Web 4.0. The virtual world is an important enabler of Web 4.0 that can significantly revolutionize people’s daily lives and open up a wide range of opportunities across multiple business and industrial ecosystems,” it said.

Some examples include using virtual worlds to train surgeons for complex medical procedures, using “digital twins” to preserve cultural heritage buildings, or even solving global warming. Including using the D model.

In its working document submitted to the European Parliament, the Commission proposed its plan to become a “world leader” in Web 4.0 and the metaverse.

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Web 4.0 (aka the #metaverse ) will allow integration between digital and real objects and environments.

Europe has everything it needs to lead this next technological transformation – especially for #Industry,

our strategy pic.twitter.com/v4iGqtEkKw

– Thierry Breton (@thierrybreton) 11 July 2023

“Today, Europe is in the race to become the world leader in Web 4.0 and the virtual world,” said Thierry Breton, European Commissioner for the Internal Market.

A total of 10 actions have been proposed by the commission to achieve this, including attracting specialized virtual world talent to the sector, creating regulatory sandboxes to test new ideas, and developing global standards for interoperable metaverses.

Breton said, “Europe has what it needs to lead the next technological transformation: innovative start-ups, rich creative content and industrial applications, a strong role as a global standard-setter, and an innovation-friendly and predictable legal framework.”

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