Multiverse Labs, a decentralized Aritificial Intelligence startup, has created the world’s first state-backed metaverse city. The city called Sharjahverse was launched with the support of the Sharjah Commerce and Tourism Development Authority (SCTDA).
Sharjahverse will be the first metaverse of city scale. While it is meant to improve tourism in the region, the new virtual city also has economic and social utility in itself.
Sharjahverse will feature photorealistic elements that are also accurate in terms of physics. These elements combine to showcase the Emirate’s 1,000 square miles surface area. Sharjahverse is also expected to generate new metaverse-related jobs, in alignment with the vision of the neighboring state of Dubai.
UAE has been aggressively making forays into the metaverse and Web 3.0space for some time now. It intends to use these technologies to bolster its economy. Not only did Dubai host the first-ever Dubai Metaverse Assembly, the city also revealed a new economic metric for measuring the growth and contribution of the metaverse economy. The metric was meant to showcase the potential of a metaverse and how it could be a significant contributor to the future economy.
The new metaverse city, Khalid Jasim Al Midfa, chairman at SCTDA, said, has the potential to transform the mass market tourism industry. It could play a key role in bringing in next-generation, sustainable practices. He said that the Sharjahverse will also enable unprecedented access to almost any location in the Emirate. The AI-driven technology will, in his view, promote Sharjah as a center of excellence.
Cliff Szu, the CEO of Multiverse Labs, described Sharjahverse as both the world’s first government-backed metaverse city that can be viewed by the public. He also claimed that it is the world’s most realistic metaverse.
Arguing that the city will offer more than virtual land and games, Szu said that the avatars will be based on photographs of real people from public spaces.
