Metaverse and China: Are Things Headed For A Collision Course

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Metaverse and China: Are Things Headed For A Collision Course

China has been increasingly cracking down on its tech elite since last year. But with metaverse becoming a new technological horizon, is the country prepared to regulate it? Or, will metaverse be the panacea to China's tech companies? 

China's long crusade against its tech giants has wiped out trillion dollars from its stock market. The crackdown began after one of China's most famous billionaires, Jack Ma, the co-founder of Alibaba Group, criticised the Chinese Communist Party in one of his speeches. 

That single speech led to a crackdown from authorities on the growing influence of digital companies and the billionaires it created in the country. 

Alibaba, Tencent, and Baidu were just the most prolific names that got caught in the crossfire. Hundreds and thousands of other smaller businesses felt the aftereffects of China tightening the noose around its digital goose. Shutdowns on the for-profit tutoring sector, gaming, entertainment and more soon followed as well. 

Most of this was done at least ostensibly under the guise of President Xi Jinping's "common prosperity campaign". But as China's tech companies increase their investments into the metaverse, a network of 3D persistent virtual worlds that can be interacted with using AR/VR technology, questions arise about how the authorities will react. 

Metaverse could potentially be a massive industry in China, as noted by Morgan Stanley analysts, who peg its value at a whopping $8 trillion in the coming decades. 

But companies will have to be careful of not running afoul of Chinese authorities in their quest to build this new generation of the Internet. 

Tech companies are already dreaming up services like coaching