Facebook investing $50 million to build metaverse
The company says it intends to create a "responsible" virtual space.
Facebook wants to create a virtual space for everyone.
Facebook made strides in both augmented reality and virtual reality with its Facebook Reality Labs. Now the social media platform wants to create virtual spaces and build its own metaverse.
Facebook plans to invest $50 million to create a metaverse that it says will be "a set of virtual spaces where you can create and explore with other people who aren't in the same physical space as you." The money will be spent over two years through its XR Programs and Research Fund, with plans to work with other organizations, nonprofits, academic institutions and governments. A metaverse would need more than just Facebook to create it, the company says, and it could take 10 to 15 years to bring this idea to fruition.
Along with laying out its plans for creating a metaverse, Facebook says it will build the virtual spaces responsibly. This includes keeping individuals' privacy intact by minimizing the amount of data used, keeping people online safe, giving individuals choices for a thriving digital economy and making sure the technologies created are inclusive and accessible.
This new venture into virtual spaces by Facebook comes a week after the social media titan named a new chief technology officer. Andrew Bosworth, the current vice president of augmented and virtual reality, will be the CTO starting in October.