Chinese social-media giant ByteDance and US semiconductor and wireless technology company Qualcomm have joined forces to pursue the development of metaverse-ready extended reality (XR) technologies, reports the South China Morning Post. “We’re collaborating on hardware and software to enable a global XR ecosystem,” said Cristiano Amon, Qualcomm’s president and chief executive, on Monday at a press conference.
XR is an umbrella term for immersive technologies such as VR and augmented reality (AR). Both VR and AR are regarded as fundamental to the development of the metaverse—the concept of a shared virtual environment that users access online, which is also considered as the next generation of the internet.
ByteDance chief executive Liang Rubo, who replaced founder Zhang Yiming as head of the Beijing-based tech unicorn at the end of last year, appeared on video during Qualcomm’s announcement to express the Chinese firm’s “commitment to building solutions that empower developers and creators with Qualcomm’s decade-long extended reality leadership.”