At the Meta Connect conference that ended recently, in addition to paying attention to the latest progress made by Meta in meta-universe , we also noticed that another technology giant, Microsoft , is doing big things silently.
After all, Meta In addition to the release of the new VR high-end headset Quest Pro, another focus is that announced that it will reach a deep and comprehensive strategic cooperation with Microsoft , making everyone realize that Microsoft has been silently making efforts in the meta-universe field.
Since the concept of metaverse was proposed, major Internet companies have been on the front line of building the metaverse. Microsoft, as the Internet leader, will naturally not be willing to lose weight. In recent years, it has been causing trouble, and its metaverse layout has gradually taken shape and is constantly expanding.
Then let’s analyze Microsoft’s meta-universe layout from the aspects of application scenarios, computing power and algorithms, 5G technology, interaction technology, etc.
application scenarios
In terms of gaming, Microsoft announced in January this year that it would acquire the American video game giant Activision Blizzard If nothing unexpected happens, Blizzard will be included in the 2023 fiscal year.
game is one of Microsoft's main development areas, and Blizzard and its subsidiaries are mainly engaged in technical fields such as video games, virtual worlds, interactive, virtual reality , among which more than 560 patents are related to the metaverse.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella also said: "The meta-universe is essentially a game. It can put people, places, and things into the physics engine and then correlate them."
Therefore, Microsoft's acquisition of Blizzard's move marks Microsoft's ambition to enter the meta-universe and use the game port to layout the meta-universe.
. In terms of industrial , Microsoft announced the establishment of a new team called "Industrial Metaverse Core" .
The team will focus on creating immersive software interfaces for industrial control systems that power applications such as power plants, industrial robots and transportation networks.
Microsoft’s goal is to create a virtual world focused on industrial work that can monitor and evaluate real-world machine and factory environments. In addition, Microsoft’s upcoming industrial products extend to the transportation network.
computing power and algorithm
meta-universe interaction and operation need to be based on communication technology and computing power, and a powerful computing power network is needed as support; therefore GPU, CPU and ASIC chip are extremely important in the development of the meta-universe.
In November 2021, Microsoft announced the NDm A100 v4 Public AI supercomputer, which can be equipped with eight Nvidia A100 Tensor Core GPUs. Each GPU has 432 Nvidia Tensor Cores and 6912 Nvidia CUDA Cores. Each GPU supports HDR 200G InfiniBand connection, which can establish fast connections between thousands of GPUs in the Azure cloud.
This supercomputer has achieved the top 10 results in the recent top 500 supercomputers list.
In January this year, Qualcomm announced that it will jointly develop the tailor-made Snapdragon chip for Microsoft AR smart eyes, promoting Microsoft to further expand its metacosmic ecosystem; both parties' customized chips are mainly used in light AR eyes, aimed at consumer and enterprise metacosmic applications.
Recently, Microsoft has also released the latest achievements in quantum computing . explores and develops topology quantum computer . It has now developed a topology qubit building block, which can generate topology phases and measure topology gaps; these technological breakthroughs are conducive to the implementation of topology computing and lays the foundation for the development of topology quantum computers.
. Microsoft Azure can fully cover storage, hardware and infrastructure including big data, and can fully operate emerging technologies such as GPUs and FFGAs to maximize the value of AI's computing power.
At the same time, Microsoft also provides programming languages, various toolkits, etc. for people who develop AI algorithms, providing them with a complete development and operation environment, such as Project Brainwave OpenPAI, Tools for AI, NNI, etc.
5G communication
Low latency 5G communication technology can ensure the sense of immersion and meta-universe availability at any time.
Microsoft cooperates with International Communications Satellite Organization to combine its satellite network and Azure cloud platform . ICTS provides secure and high-performance private LTE and 5G network deployment capabilities, which can provide fast, reliable and cost-effective network connections to corporate customers anywhere in the world.
AT&T and Microsoft have also reached a partnership to shift their non-network infrastructure computing needs to Microsoft Azure cloud; AT&T can build 5G networks well and choose Microsoft Azure as its preferred service, which can enhance Microsoft's competitive advantage.
and Microsoft has also established a huge network of more than 60 data center areas around the world, where customers can rent their computing power and storage space. Now Microsoft hopes to use 5G devices from partners such as AT&T (T.US) to provide some customers with better data processing capabilities remotely than regional data centers.
VR/AR products and technologies
VR/AR is a brain-computer interface, that is, the connector between people and the virtual world, and is an indispensable medium.
HoloLens 2 has been around for more than two years and is sold as an enterprise device; it covers luminous virtual objects existing in the real world, and the highlight is that there is no controller, which requires the user's hands to complete the operation; it also has eye tracking function, which is not available in current non-business VR devices.
For VR/AR meta-universe software services, Microsoft has developed a hybrid office collaboration product Mesh for Teams, and Microsoft will adopt a "software-led" strategy for this product.
Recently, Meta announced a cooperation with Microsoft to release a new VR headset, which introduced a number of Microsoft's software products, which will integrate Microsoft's Windows App, Teams and other products with Meta Meta Meta Universe hardware.
At the Connect conference, Microsoft CEO confirmed that Teams will integrate with Quest devices and provide technology to allow Windows App to connect to Meta helmets in streaming form; in the next few months, Xbox Cloud Gaming streaming game service will also enter Quest devices.
Microsoft is the first Internet leader to propose the concept of corporate metaverse. The CEO uses the "corporate metaverse" to describe the future vision of a series of Azure product lines such as digital twins and the Internet of Things.
What Microsoft's corporate metaverse represents is the more thorough digitalization and automation of the enterprise side, using technology to release productivity dividends; in recent years, Microsoft has also been constantly laying out its metaverse "major ambition", from games, industry to military, and its ambitions are gradually being revealed.
What new surprises will Microsoft bring to the metaverse in the future? Let's wait and see.
Author: Tan Ying Typesetting: Kong Hanyue
Pictures are derived from QZai's Internet surfing. If there is any infringement, contact the background, QZai will delete it~
