The AR market size may reach US$120 billion in 2020, and China will become the world's largest investor in investment

When Kevin Kelly, known as the great god, declared that "virtual reality is here" two months ago, most people didn't realize it. But one late night, in the bustling Central Park, when hundreds of people lowered their heads to fiddle with their mobile phones just to get a rare virtual wizard, everyone understood something: the difference between reality and fantasy, and the future depicted in "The Matrix" and "Minority Report" has arrived.

Original title: The AR market will reach US$120 billion in 2020. China's capital will become the largest investor in AR investment.

When Kevin Kelly, who is known as the great god, declared that "virtual reality is here" two months ago, most people didn't realize it. But one late night, in the bustling Central Park, when hundreds of people lowered their heads to fiddle with their mobile phones just to get a rare virtual wizard, everyone understood something: the difference between reality and fantasy, and the future depicted in "The Matrix" and "Minority Report" has arrived.

This future is exciting: humans have no more distance, and when I want to see you, your holographic picture will appear in front of me; this future is scary, and your existence has become a flow of information, a chip, and no more secrets.

Like computers, the Internet, and mobile phones, the world is ushering in virtual reality, known as the fourth generation of major platform changes. Its far-reaching impact is far from being exhausted today.

In this future being built, China, China Capital, and China Market have become one of the most important driving forces.

Liu Sinan (pseudonym), who lives in Guangzhou, was quite disappointed after hearing that the world-famous AR game "Pokemon Go" would not be launched in the mainland of China. Although before this, she had downloaded the game through an overseas account and used plug-ins to direct herself to any latitude and longitude in the world at any time to catch monsters, she had already practiced to level 20.

When she encounters a Pokemon, her camera will automatically turn on, and a elf will appear in the real space with her bedroom as the background. But she still hasn't fully realized the magical game app she calls "A Glance to the Future." Players need to run to a specific location to automatically unlock it, and find elves in bushes, museums, and ponds; it is extremely addictive, bringing servers to detonate wherever it drives. Within two weeks of its launch, there have been many reports of traffic accidents due to playing games; due to its popularity, it quickly became a campaign front for major advertisers and even U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton; As a result, the market value of game developer Nintendo surged in a week and brought stable revenue to Apple for the next year or two.

Market data predicts that the AR market size will reach US$120 billion in 2020.

Compared with Pokemon games blocked in China, on the other side of the ocean, China has become the brightest star in the home of augmented reality (AR) investment. According to data, the world invested a total of US$1.7 billion in AR/VR in the first quarter of this year, of which nearly US$1 billion came from China.

"There is no doubt that China industries and China capital have become the largest source of funds in this round of augmented reality investment, providing the most core financial support for the early development of the entire industry." Ryan Pamplin, vice president of META, one of the top three AR headsets, said in an exclusive interview with reporters.

At an augmented reality forum in New York, the person in charge of Augamented.com joked to nearly a hundred programmers present,"If you haven't installed WeChat yet, you have to hurry up!"

Smart China Capital Seizes AR Highland

"We are all bought by China, right?" After Meta received investment from Lenovo, Tencent and others, a promotion specialist joked easily at an event.

Slightly different from VR, almost every company that has invested heavily in AR overseas this year is a star in China's technology industry.

In February this year, China Capital invested in the well-known AR startup Magic Leap. Magic Leap received an investment of US$793.5 million in a new round of financing, in which both Alibaba and Google participated. It is estimated that Magic Leap's valuation will reach at least US$4.5 billion, and will launch related AR products in the near future.

On June 8, the first Global Virtual Reality Conference with the theme of "Creating a New World" opened in Shanghai. Leaders including Meta and Microsoft conducted live demonstrations and sharing.

On June 9, Lenovo held the TechWorld Technology Innovation Conference in San Francisco to launch the PHAB2 Pro, the world's first AR large-screen smartphone equipped with Tango technology, launched jointly by Lenovo and Google.

According to reports, there will be a series of AR games launched around this Tango phone. The upcoming games include the indoor version of Pokemon Go, shooting games and pet breeding games.

On June 13, Lenovo and other companies participated in a US$50 million Series B financing from Silicon Valley startup Meta; on June 15, Lumus, an Israel-based AR glasses optical solution manufacturer, confirmed that it had received US$15 million in Series B financing, with capital from China's Shanda Group and listed company Crystal Optoelectronics.

"It can be seen that this round of investment in AR is all very good technology companies. They understand the market and can get equally good projects with industry giants including Google." Sketchfab CEO said in an exclusive interview with reporters.

A large amount of venture capital has poured into the AR field. Especially with the entry of large companies such as Google, Canon, Qualcomm, and Microsoft, the first batch of consumer-grade AR products have appeared on the market. Among them, the most well-known one is Google Glass.

In April 2012, Google released the first smart glasses device to expand reality, leading the global AR wave. However, due to high cost and lack of content support, Google stopped Google Glass's "Explorer" project in 2015. Although Pokemon Go is popular around the world, few domestic game companies in China are willing to develop AR games. The reason is that today, when mobile games are popular, most game companies are reluctant to venture into the AR field, and they also lack super IPs like Pokemon.

CIC, Tencent, Shanda, and Wanda have invested heavily in entertainment AR.

Although there is no domestic AR content production yet, in fact, these smart China companies have laid out ecosystems other than AR hardware overseas-it is not difficult to see that the games and entertainment industry will become the first adopters.

On July 13, local time, a series of institutions, including CIC, announced that they had completed US$181 million in financing for Unity, the mobile game engine behind Pokemon, and are committed to continuing the platform to augmented reality and virtual reality. Functional direction creation.

Previously, Tencent had acquired a 48.4% stake in the issued share capital of Epic Games, the production company of the well-known game engine "Unreal Engine" for US$330 million in July 2012, which means that Tencent has gained some say in Epic Games. Although Tencent holds less than half of the shares and has not formed a controlling stake, Epic Games is already an associate company of Tencent Group, and Tencent has the right to nominate directors on Epic Games 'board of directors.

"Currently, the most common VR/AR platforms in the world are two game engines Unreal and Unity, and early investments including Tencent show China's sense of smell and focus in this field." Alban Denoyel, CEO of virtual reality platform Sketchfab, said in an exclusive interview with reporters.

In addition to games, movies are actually an area where AR will soon exude charm in the future. "All Hollywood production companies are currently talking about consultation or cooperation with META, and many movie AR projects will be announced in the next few months." said Ryan Pamplin, senior vice president of AR headset company META.

"China's advantage in the film AR field is that investors including Wanda have already acquired Hollywood theaters early, which allows companies to once again stand in the limelight of technology." Panplin pointed out.

On July 21, local time, Legendary Pictures, a subsidiary of Wanda Group, has won the movie adaptation rights of the recent popular mobile games "Pokemon", and will cooperate with the mobile game developer The Pokemon Co. to film the first live-action version of the movie "Detective Pikachu", which will begin production as soon as next year.

It is reported that as early as April, there were rumors that Legendary Pictures was interested in purchasing the movie adaptation rights of Pokemon GO. Legendary Pictures was acquired by China entertainment giant Wanda in January for US$3.5 billion. Adapting Pokemon GO live-action films is the third important agreement reached less than a month since it was acquired.

Industry AR development needs to start.

Although overseas mergers and acquisitions are fierce, domestic companies still appear to be slow to move. Sunny Dhillon, an executive at Silicon Valley firm Signia Ventures, said after visiting China that domestic augmented reality in China has been obviously ignored. Magic Leap, Google Tango and Hololens were never discussed. In addition to entertainment, the application of VR/AR in enterprises, medical care, communication and education should also be strengthened.

But Ryan, who has just returned from China. Panplin disagreed with this view. He said that as an American headset manufacturer, META is already discussing specific projects with ministries and private institutions in China. "The China government is studying how to integrate AR technology into education, security, medical care and other fields, and has begun to arrange specialized scientific researchers to conduct research and development cooperation with the META team." Ryan Panplin told reporters.

In Ryan Panplin's view, the development of the AR education market in China is the most impressive. It is most appropriate to develop visual and interactive examples to learn human structure or physical movement laws.

Although it is difficult to produce high-quality products like Pokemon Go in the game field in the short term, AR technology has a wide range of applications. For example, Ali also established a VR laboratory earlier, hoping to accelerate the realization of the virtual world shopping experience through the "God of Creation" program.

"At present, AR technology is in its initial stages around the world. At present, there are many cutting-edge technologies abroad, but in the future, China is likely to surpass the United States in terms of AR use scale to real technological innovation." Ryan Panplin pointed out.