Dubai’s Metaverse Strategy

Crown Prince of Dubai Hamdan bin Mohammed has launched the Dubai Metaverse Strategy. The strategy “aims to turn Dubai into one of the world’s top 10 metaverse economies as well as a global hub for the metaverse community”.

The announcement was published by the UAE official news agency WAM on July 18th. The strategy aims to attract blockchain and metaverse companies, to create 40,000 virtual jobs and to add $4 billion to the economy in 5 years.

According to the announcement:

“The Dubai Metaverse Strategy supports the development of Web3 technology and its applications to create new governmental work models and development in vital sectors. The strategy also aims to develop global standards in building safe and secure platforms for users and develop metaverse infrastructure and regulations to accelerate the adoption of these technologies”.

The strategy is based on digital twins and a variety of realities: augmented, extended, virtual, mixed… VR and AR will be responsible for almost 7000 jobs and contribute US$500 million to the UAE’s economy that’s why they are considered to be the main pillars of the strategy. Real-world data is going to be obtained, validated, stored, processed, managed and transferred further to the metaverse. Full deployment of 5G networks and development of edge computing are also planned.

Later on the Crown Prince announced that the Higher Committee for Future Technology and Digital Economy in Dubai was established “to consolidate Dubai’s status as a global digital economy hub and to promote Dubai’s supremacy in the digital economy globally”.

The eight-member committee will supervise the implementation of strategies relating to the digital economy and future technologies in Dubai. It will design policies and analyse trends for the digital economy and future technologies, including the metaverse, AI, blockchain, Web3, VR, AR, IoT, data centres and cloud computing in Dubai.

By the way Dubai is not the first in line: earlier this year Shanghai issued a policy paper concerning its strategy to grow a metaverse industry worth $52 billion by the end of 2025. Development of Web3 and NFTs is thick and fast and their contribution to the global economy is rapidly growing. No surprise that every country is vying to be at the top.