After a period of prudent investment, on February 15, Tencent launched a new business unit called XR (Extended Reality). They will build a world-class tech team led by industry leaders, and recently started inter-departmental recruitment creating over 40 positions, covering three major competencies: content creation, operations, and R&D.

This new department has been launched to deliver Tencent’s vision for the next evolution of the digital world, “All-true Internet”. Many industry leaders believe this is equivalent to the world’s hottest tech concept, “the metaverse”.

Their approach shares similarities with Meta and Bytedance, the other two Internet giants with ambitions to expand their business into the “meta-universe”. Its newly established XR division also starts with producing hardware devices to develop a content ecosystem.

Specifically, the new XR business focuses on building XR devices at the hardware end, perceptual interaction technology at the software end, and a content developer ecosystem at the industry front end.

Tencent’s action is not a surprise given its status as one of China’s leading tech giants, who wish to be a key player in shaping China’s digital future.

As of November 2021, AR and VR financing has reached more than 54 billion yuan, more than double last year’s 23 billion yuan, and it is worth mentioning that there were 55 financing events in the Chinese VR industry in 2021.

“With new technologies such as VR, new hardware, and new software emerging in various scenarios, I believe another big shake-up is about to begin,” Ma (CEO of Tencent) said in a magazine interview in 2020.