Capital Burning VR Again - "Capital Marshal" Zhang Jiahao Visits Shenzhen VR Industry Federation

On April 13th, Dr. Zhang Jiahao, Chairman of the US China Investment Promotion Association and founder of Guangdian Innovation Investment, visited the Shenzhen Virtual Reality Industry Federation and Elephant Group for inspection and held a symposium.

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Chairman Zhang Jiahao had in-depth communication with Tan Yiguo, the President of Shenzhen Virtual Reality Industry Federation and the Chairman of Shenzhen Elephant Virtual Reality Technology Co., Ltd., as well as his doctoral team. They analyzed the trend of the 5G+VR industry and had specific discussions on cooperation in the digital economy field. They unanimously recognized that virtual reality, as a typical field of new generation information technology integration and innovation, is increasingly mature in key technologies, It has broad application prospects in mass consumption and vertical industries, and is gradually forming an emerging industry with huge development prospects, which is the next generation computing platform.

"Capital Marshal" Zhang Jiahao admitted:

In the early years, he extensively invested in the electronic communication industry, and in recent years, he has also made new technology a key investment area. Shenzhen has always been his investment destination. Recently, I have been paying special attention to the digital economy, and my bright eyes are particularly focused on the integration of production and investment in virtual reality VR. There are two reasons for this:

One reason is that mobile phone giants are flocking to lay out the business behind "Avatar". Having tasted the sweetness of investing in the mobile phone industry, he has always been paying attention to the iteration of the mobile phone industry, and virtual avatar technology has also fully entered the vision of mainstream mobile phone manufacturers such as Apple, Huawei, and Xiaomi. Digital avatar technology has become one of the standard features of smartphones in the smart age. Xiaomi releases a new product called "Xiaomi 11", and Mimoji 3.0 is here again; The first generation of Avatar technology that truly entered the consumer level vision was represented by the Animoji emoji on the iPhone, while the second generation of Avatar was represented by the Memoji and Xiaomi Mimoji on the iPhone. The development from a single cartoon animal avatar to automatic generation of realistic human cartoon images has given users more autonomy in creation and a more vivid image library.

"Digital avatars" are gradually becoming the virtual identity of the new generation of internet residents.

Powerful computer technology encourages everyone to create various versions of themselves. Huawei has launched "Fun AR" and selected the 3D Qmoji feature. At this point, your head becomes the head of an animal, including chameleons, Huskies, penguins, rabbits, and more. You can imitate expressions such as blinking, frowning, and opening your mouth. Since the launch of Mimoji, Xiaomi has recently iterated its products to version 3.0, with comprehensive upgrades to facial contouring, rendering, and drivers. The material library has also undergone massive updates, providing users with a brand new virtual avatar technology experience. In addition, mobile phone manufacturers such as Samsung and Meizu are actively exploring applications related to digital avatars, accelerating the layout of the "future" of the integration of the "virtual digital world" and the real world. The birth and widespread application of digital avatars are based on the fact that we live in an era of incredibly rich digital assets. With the help of these "digital assets", we can build more possibilities in the virtual world, overturn the limitations of the real world, and achieve a future where "everyone dreaming together is called reality".

The second reason is that:

Virtual reality/augmented reality technology has been officially included in the key industries of the digital economy in the national "14th Five Year Plan" (seven major sectors including cloud computing, big data, Internet of Things, industrial Internet, blockchain, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and augmented reality industries).

VR is specifically manifested in promoting technological innovation such as 3D graphics generation, dynamic environment modeling, real-time action capture and rapid rendering processing, developing virtual reality machines, perception interaction, content collection and production equipment, development tools and software, and industry solutions. "VR application technology" has been included in the 2020 undergraduate enrollment plan of the Ministry of Education, and the World VR Conference has been held for three consecutive sessions in Nanchang,   Despite the once-in-a-century global pandemic that broke out during the 2020 Spring Festival, the more difficult the real world becomes, the more exciting the virtual world becomes. The pandemic has spurred the outbreak of VR。

The world's largest comprehensive digital content platform, Steam VR, has set a new record in terms of connectivity and proportion, with an estimated number of nearly 3 million units! This undoubtedly injects a boost into the XR industry. In the path of XR from research and development to end market application, content and hardware are complementary. High quality content promotes hardware equipment upgrading, hardware technology improvement stimulates high-quality content creation, and ultimately, what can bring XR into consumer terminals is undoubtedly the coordinated development of content application and the overall XR ecosystem. With the explosive sales of Quest 2, the domestic VR/AR industry has experienced a downturn from 2018 to 2019 and has rebounded. Recently, it has quickly returned to the public eye and become a hot area of capital attention.

In March 2021, there were a total of 20 financing and mergers and acquisitions in the global VR/AR industry, compared to 13 in the same period last year. The activity of financing and mergers and acquisitions increased by 100% in March this year (including 8 VR, 10 AR, and 5 XR). Some VR/AR companies with core technologies in key positions in the industry chain have completed large-scale financing, such as Nreal, Pico, Nolo, Longjing Optoelectronics, etc. The VR/AR industry is attracting a new round of entrepreneurship and investment opportunities.; In March, there were a total of 31 VR/AR related policies in China, including 29 policies issued by local government departments.

Zhang Jiahao stated that China has sounded the horn for the development of 5G, and Shenzhen has taken the lead in entering the 5G era globally. VR has become the darling of the 5G era. Technological innovation is the greatest driving force for enterprises to enhance their core competitiveness and achieve high-quality development. VR is also the most suitable investment concept for combining capital, technology, and content. The three major attributes of VR are composed of capital, talent, and content (application), and none of them are indispensable. VR technology has been widely applied in fields such as 5G government affairs and 5G new life. After the commercialization of 5G, the development of 5G applications has promoted the digital transformation of the economy, posing higher requirements for technology platforms such as VR. We need to establish a sound venture capital system, innovate technology and financial products and services, and enable finance to serve the private economy and strongly support technological innovation in the private economy.

The US China Investment Promotion Association has always been adept at operating innovative industrial investment models, with capital as the core, industry as the foundation, integrated operation as the guidance, content innovation as the export, building an emerging industry ecosystem, and studying the necessary structural elements of the new economic era. The investment model of "industry+capital+content ecology" has been proven to be successful. In recent years, he has served as a senior economic advisor in over 90 cities, providing capital and resource support for the development of multiple cities.

Both parties agree

Relying on the VR/AI Industrial Innovation Center in the Greater Bay Area under the umbrella of the Federation (established in March 2019), we work together with industry funds, VR leading enterprises, and university research institutions to brainstorm and build an industrial ecosystem. VR is similar to any wave of information technology, just like the internet industry, it is a big wave of sand washing. After more than eight years of resistance, giants have also grown on the corpses of countless entrepreneurs. The VR industry has just emerged for four to five years, and over time, batches of top companies will go public. However, three 90 year startups of Yingshi Innovation have successfully gone public on the Science and Technology Innovation Board.

Both sides have expressed their development vision of continuing to expand and strengthen the VR/AI Industry Innovation Center in the Greater Bay Area. In accordance with the demand of the 5G+VR market, they focus on key common technology research and development, combine industry development, formulate clear technology roadmap, establish technology standards and independent intellectual property with industry influence, and effectively play a leading role in the industry. We need to further refine and improve the production capabilities of VR content and scene applications, and strive to provide a one-stop capability support for the entire industry chain, including cutting-edge technology research and development, industrial technology breakthroughs, mainstream application demonstration and promotion, skilled talent team cultivation, upstream and downstream industry collaboration, as well as system pilot and mass production verification.

Deeply cooperate in international resource integration, industrial investment, mergers and acquisitions, capital operation, content operation, etc. Firstly, establish a VR integrated media industry fund through joint venture, promote local governments to introduce VR industry support policies, and create a VR content production base.

President Tan Yiguo and the attending guests introduced the Shenzhen Virtual Reality Industry Federation, which he founded. As the first VR social organization in China with a forward-looking and international perspective, and the largest comprehensive service organization in the XR industry ecosystem in China, it strives to build a VR industry ecosystem and promote the evolution of the virtual reality industry into a benchmark science and technology innovation highland. Currently, it has 380 core member enterprises.

However, talent and content are clearly the two major pain points that constrain the development of VR. The shortage of talents has constrained the development of industries, especially facing bottlenecks such as a lack of highly skilled talents and talent recognition standards. High skilled talents are the greatest driving force for technological innovation. In 2020, the annual output value of virtual reality in Shenzhen was 30 billion yuan, and the talent gap exceeded 300000. Higher education institutions opened undergraduate majors in virtual reality technology in 2020. In February 2020, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security announced that VR has become a new profession and job.

Content is also another bottleneck that restricts the development of VR, and building a content manufacturing center is one of the effective means to solve the application of VR content. Both sides have seriously discussed the possibility of the VR/AI Industry Innovation Center in the Greater Bay Area collaborating to incubate a VR content creative base and a digital economy application center for Shenzhen and Zhaoqing within five years. VR is the most suitable industry for Zhaoqing's investment promotion. Firstly, due to the beautiful environment, inspiration is readily available, and VR itself is the most imaginative creative industry; The second reason is that VR is too easy to attract popularity, with hardware, content, platform, panoramic shooting, live streaming experience, and perfect combination of industry, academia, and research; Thirdly, Zhaoqing has more than 20 vocational colleges, and Elephant Virtual Reality has invested 5 million yuan to establish the Elephant Industry College in collaboration with Guangdong University of Business and Technology. It provides virtual vocational skills training for over 200000 vocational and secondary school students in Zhaoqing, cultivating more practical talents in VR skill modeling and production.

Jiang Fengyang, Vice President of Yiben Fund, Zhang Zhigang, Chairman of Yisanda Group, Chen Binghua, Secretary General of the US China Investment Promotion Association, Xia Siqing, Special Assistant to the Chairman of Sanuo Group, He Jin, Director of the Chip Laboratory at the Shenzhen Research Institute of Peking University, and Li Xin, former Director of Human Resources at Huawei Terminal, accompanied the inspection and participated in the digital economy VR investment symposium.

DEFINITION

Shenzhen Virtual Reality Industry Federation

Established on April 10, 2016, it was jointly initiated by leading enterprises such as Elephant VR, Realis, Insta360, 3Glass, Pico, Seengene, Emdoor VR, Deepoon, China Mobile Internet of Things, Lenovo VR, Pi, etc. It currently has 380 member enterprises and is the first VR social organization in China with a forward-looking and international perspective. It is also the largest comprehensive service organization in the XR industry ecosystem in China. Since its establishment, the Federation has strived to build a VR industry ecosystem, promote the evolution of the virtual reality industry into a benchmark science and technology innovation highland, establish the VR/AI industry innovation center in the Greater Bay Area, and the first VR maker space in China - the Smart Space; Establishing the Global 5G+XR Application Summit; Initiate a professional VR/AI industry innovation competition - "Tiange Award"; Jointly building a virtual reality public training center with the human resources department, we are committed to exploring the industry alliance model of "industry demand oriented, enterprise innovation as the main body, key technology as the core, testing technology as the basis, and technical standards as the guide".

US China Investment Promotion Association

The US China Investment Promotion Association (ACIP) is mainly initiated by elites in finance, technology, education, culture, trade, and other fields from the United States and Europe. In the global field, ACIP is committed to becoming the most influential platform for promoting financial capital, industrial innovation, education, science, culture, health, and cultural tourism exchanges and interactions between Europe, the United States, and China. The US China Investment Promotion Association has branches in more than 40 countries around the world, and currently has over 5000 top international experts, scholars, and professors, as well as over 4000 outstanding entrepreneurs in various fields around the world. Gathering global advantageous capital, top talents, and high-quality projects, forming interactive integration, deep links, innovation and upgrading, capital matching, and resource optimization between global members and industrial sectors. The US China Investment Promotion Association is committed to building an important civil bridge to help the world understand China and connect China with the world.