Five Chinese ministries have set out an action plan to develop a national metaverse for connected devices in industry, the home and connected cars. The five ministries, which include China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), seek to build three to five industrial clusters around the technology by 2025.

In order to achieve the goals, the ministries have developed five major programmes including improving innovation and integration of metaverse dependent technologies such as AI, blockchain, cloud computing and VR.

The initial focus looks to be on creating an industrial ecosystem around Industry 4.0 and industrial metaverse. Metaverse applications in the home, automobiles, ships and aerospace are also slated for development.

The plan, published in the CCP flagship publication Global Times, seeks to create five leading global companies in the metaverse sector, by developing and integrating AI, blockchain, VR and connected technologies.

In addition to the MIIT, the plans were drawn up by the education and tourism ministries, the State Council’s enterprise regulator, and the country’s National Radio and Television Administration.

“China’s digital economy has reached a new stage of development, and the digital technologies and platforms accumulated over the years have laid a good foundation for the development of the metaverse,” Wang Peng, an associate research fellow at the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times.