The industrial metaverse is an idea for which the basic building blocks are now being implemented across industry as part of a general digital transformation. A key technology component of the industrial metaverse is, of course, the cloud, which is already being used to access systems and data from any device at any time and enable interaction with co- workers in real time regardless of location. Coupling the cloud with artificial intelligence (AI) gives the industrial metaverse the ability to access historical data, test concepts and forecast new outcomes.
But much of the vision around any concept using the term metaverse tends to focus on the use of virtual reality (VR) headsets to immerse the user into a simulation of a real world setting they can interact with via the VR tech. And that’s where the industrial metaverse vision and reality tend to diverge—at least for now.
Though immersive VR has been used for industrial training for years now, many of the metaverse concepts proposed by automation technology suppliers are not always connected to an immersive VR concept. Instead, most focus on the metaverse as an always- on world connecting factories, machines, data and people. The immersive aspects are always a potential, but not a requirement of most industrial metaverse technologies, as regular use of the headsets still revolves around user comfortability with the headsets for extended periods of time.
Siemens and Sony, however, appear to be betting on immersive VR. The two companies recently announced a partnership to introduce new technology for immersive engineering that combines a Sony head-mounted display with Siemens’ Xcelerator design software.
