What is the metaverse, and what is it for? CS view the metaverse as a more spatially immersive, compelling, and frictionless internet which comprises five essential components: infrastructure, hardware, content, platforms/communities, and payment mechanisms.

Metaverse use case is expanding. CS see developments across gaming, entertainment, work collaboration, social media, virtual worlds, education and fitness. For businesses, CS see advances in collaboration, design, and commerce, with additional sector-specific benefits to healthcare, real estate, and manufacturing.

Hardware: near-term focus on AR/VR. The metaverse will drive upgrades to capabilities required on almost all hardware devices involved, and may even lead to some dedicated “killer” hardware products, such as the iPhone was for the 3G (mobile data) era. Key pieces of the technology evolution include better lens and display technologies, sharper on-device sensing and faster processing, higher network data rates and lower latencies allowing cloud compute resources, changes to studio content production, and ML.

Metaverse use case is expanding. As is usually the case at the start of most such technology evolutions, some existing applications leverage emerging innovations to deliver a better and/or broader user experience. However, eventually completely new-use cases develop, as the technology evolves and matures and new killer apps can take advantage of the better on-device processing and sensing, higher data rates, lower latencies and machine learning enabled by AI. At this stage, CS see developments across gaming, entertainment, work collaboration, social media, virtual worlds, education and fitness. For businesses, CS see advances in collaboration, design, and commerce, with additional sector-specific benefits to healthcare, real estate, and manufacturing.