The new book, Parallel Metaverses: How the US, China and the Rest of the World Are Shaping Different Virtual Worlds, written by renowned author and award-winning journalist Nina Xiang, who is also the founder of Asian tech intelligence and data company China Money Network, has gone on pre-sale on Amazon.com.
The book is the first such publication to examine how the U.S., China and other global technology hotspots are building respective metaverses that will be largely independent and distinctive from each other.
“The metaverse is the next gigantic opportunity for investors, entrepreneurs, creators, and businesses to tap into the biggest revolution of digital technology that we have ever seen,” says Nina Xiang. “This book fills the knowledge void for readers who wish to have a comprehensive understanding of how the metaverse will likely be shaped across different regions globally.”
The materialization of the metaverse will take place amid persistent US-China geopolitical and technological rivalry. This means there may be greater divergence among the two countries’ metaverse ecosystems related to major players, content creation, infrastructure outlays, applications, product formats, laws and regulations, and investment opportunities.
Despite the differences, there will be some familiar trends. American companies are once more the front-runners exploring the cutting edge of the metaverse’s possibilities. Chinese companies, meanwhile, are attentively looking westward for affirmative evidence that can be adopted for the massive Chinese market.
It seems certain that in the metaverse revolution, the US and China will again play to their respective strengths. But the geopolitical tensions will complicate the evolution of “the next chapter of the Internet”, presenting companies with more complicated business decisions that go far beyond commercial considerations.
“It feels quite like déjà vu when you see how ByteDance, Tencent, and Baidu launch their products or make investments taking cues from Meta (Facebook) and Microsoft,” says Nina Xiang. “At the same time, China’s reliance on foreign core technology is again likely to define and constrain the country’s metaverse build-up. Conversely, American companies are consciously reevaluating their supply chains by incorporating the ‘China risk’ factor.”
The book examines the entire metavese ecosystem to highlight the differences and shared characteristics of the development in the U.S. and China. From major companies and their metaverse development strategies; metaverse infrastructure (chips, data centers, cloud services); man-machine interfaces (XR, AI); applications; and product matrixes, a comparative analysis of the two tech superpowers’ next computing transformation will give readers unparalleled understanding of humanity’s technology future.
Other countries and regions including South Korea, Japan, Southeast Asia, and Europe will also be covered to contrast the two tech superpowers’ blueprints.
This book will provide readers a comprehensive and deep dive into how the metaverse will be generated and built around the world. Readers will therefore be better equipped to find the best development strategy or growth opportunities for their own businesses or organizations in the age of the metaverse.
The book is currently on pre-sale in e-book format here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09RN764WF
The e-book will be released on May 3, 2022 while a paperback format will be available at the same time.