A visitor experiences the virtual reality (VR) device during the 2019 World Conference on VR Industry in Nanchang, capital of east China's Jiangxi Province, Oct. 19, 2019. The 2019 World Conference on VR Industry opened here on Saturday. (Xinhua/Peng Zhaozhi)
NANCHANG, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- The 2019 World Conference on VR Industry kicked off Saturday in Nanchang, capital of east China's Jiangxi Province, highlighting the latest technologies, products and types of businesses related to the VR (virtual reality) industry.
China's VR market will amount to 54.45 billion yuan (about 7.7 billion U.S. dollars) by 2021, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).
"China has one of the most active VR markets in the world, with an innovative VR industry and huge growth potential," said Miao Wei, China's minister of industry and information technology at the opening ceremony, who also noted that the country produces more than 70 percent of the world's high-end VR headsets.
China shipped 2.26 million units of VR/AR terminal products in the first three quarters of 2019, with a sales volume totaling 8.6 billion yuan.
Themed "VR plus 5G for a new era of perception," this year's conference aims to explore the 5G-enabled development of the VR industry in the initial stage of 5G commercialization, which is expected to cultivate new opportunities for various VR application.
Guo Ping, the rotating chairman of Chinese tech firm Huawei, said that VR and AR, which are revolutionizing human-computer interaction, will be the vanguards of 5G application as their technical challenges are being overcome one by one.
"VR with 5G is bringing the experience into a 'comfort phase,' and Huawei has positioned itself in building digital superhighways for VR and AR to help industries prosper," Guo said.
More than 7,000 experts, scholars and entrepreneurs in the field of VR, AR (augmented reality) and MR (mixed reality) from home and abroad attended the conference, nearly 300 of whom will share their insights at the main forum and 23 parallel forums, according to the organizers.
The three-day event will feature a VR expo with a 60,000-square-meter display area and 215 domestic and overseas corporate exhibitors and industry organizations from Japan, India, Germany and other countries and regions, demonstrating their latest developments of VR and AR products and applications.
Co-hosted by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the provincial government of Jiangxi, the conference is held annually in Nanchang. China's first industrial base for VR was launched in 2016 in Jiangxi, where a VR industry cluster is now taking shape.
China has witnessed a maturing and expanding VR industry as the country pushes for high-quality development and extensive application of new technologies, with an improved value chain as well as strengthened international exchanges and cooperation for a more intelligent future.
Nanchang has a hundred-billion-yuan electronic information industry, which has been growing rapidly at over 30 percent annually in recent years, said Yin Meigen, mayor of the city.
"Regarded as the next investment trend of the electronic information industry, VR will be better supported and thrive in Nanchang," Yin added.
