Mixed reality is starting to be a (serious) business

Analysts expect the global mixed reality market to exceed €5.

Oliver Thansan
Oliver Thansan
25 June 2023 Sunday 10:58
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Mixed reality is starting to be a (serious) business

Analysts expect the global mixed reality market to exceed €5.8 billion by 2026. In 2020, this volume was barely €550 million. Experts such as the participants in the latest edition of Sónar D in Barcelona underline that this technology, fundamental in the development of the fourth and fifth industrial revolutions, is gaining the respect of investors and managers of numerous companies and institutions.

In addition, they are convinced that the progression will not stop. However, the sector admits that launch costs are still very high, which is a clear drag on the emergence of these systems on a large scale. Mixed reality, also called hybrid, is the combination of virtual and augmented reality.

It is a mixture that allows the creation of new spaces in which both people and tangible objects and others digitally generated coincide. One of the most favorable outlets for these teams is the game. In the first instance, entertainment will work as a driver of mixed reality's popularity, experts say.

In addition, it will serve as a catalyst for those responsible for other economic activities to end up encouraging and betting on this technology. For now, hybrid reality is serving to replace consoles and screens. For example, Zspace engineers have made notable contributions in this arena with products for medical teachers and students, as well as healthcare providers.

Three-dimensional software publisher Dassault Systèmes is another organization at the forefront of innovation. International collaboration is paying off, as demonstrated by the alliance between the company MRC Training Administrations Canada Consolidated and the Chinese company Stream Valley Innovation Organization. And the administrations are no strangers to this effervescence.

The Government of the United Kingdom already allocated 33 million euros to a project on virtual, augmented and mixed realities in the distant 2018. In that same year, by the way, Microsoft began to collaborate with JTRS and its parent company, Econocom, to lower the cost of prices of hybrid reality devices. However, progress is slow because the road is hard and long.