Industrial Metaverse:

  The Fourth (Fifth) Industrial Revolution is transforming the way we work and produce value. AR, VR, & Metaverse technologies can enable human-centric remote work and telework, teleoperation, digital twins and AI helpers, collaborative robotics and situational awareness. These can enhance productivity, efficiency, safety and sustainability in various sectors such as manufacturing, maintenance, construction, energy, transportation, agriculture, etc. This strategy aims to support and accelerate the adoption of AR/VR/Metaverse technologies in Finnish industries.

The industrial applications and implications of the metaverse.

• Study transformation of work in the industrial context through utilization of digital twins, AI and Metaverse that makes many jobs independent of time and place.

• Understand that the users of industrial metaverse solutions are the youth of the present day. Understand their expectations for working in a virtual environment and develop solutions accordingly. Conduct usability studies to create acceptable solutions.

• Develop and launch an online marketplace for Industrial Metaverse training, possibly adopting an already existing marketplace.

• Look for novel ways of cooperation between large corporations and SMEs, instead of research consortiums, there should be concrete business cooperation. An example of this is Ericsson Startup 5G Program, in which Ericsson cooperates with SME’s to develop value added services to export markets.

• Create work roles and tasks to attract the best Metaverse-ready talents to work in Finland and for Finnish companies. With the Metaverse capabilities, ensure worker wellbeing, meaningfulness of work, and individual preferences and capabilities.

• Study innovative, Metaverse enabled ways of executing traditional tasks, enabled by new technologies, new cooperation models, and new employment models.

• Study the most prominent use cases and business cases for the industrial Metaverse in all industrial segments. Which use cases benefit most for example in terms of productivity and quality. Candidates: remote repair, maintenance, training.

• Instead of creating point solutions for different segments, understand what is in common between requirements (both technical and user expectations) in different segments and drive solution development to address a broader market.

• Strengthen the role of IPs and IPRs in the Metaverse. This would encourage larger companies to join Metaverse as they could be certain that their rights are not violated.

• Incorporate foresight and continuous research into the industrial strategy work.

• Create concrete real world use case presentations, one sliders, to exhibit what the Metaverse means in practice and what is the business potential, especially to people with very little understanding about Metaverse.

• Create concrete hackathons that both develop use cases in a metaverse context or develop metaverse technological solutions and their business opportunities.

• Use Team Finland global network to identify Metaverse business opportunities.

• Identify and deploy governmental incentives to drive adoption of solutions in all industrial segments, similar to supporting adoption of electrical vehicles.

• Use the opportunity to engage as a speaker in global industry events to gain visibility and discuss opportunities. 

Industrial Metaverse Program Working Group

First steps/actions

Establishing metaverse ecosystem (in collaboration with other MIAs), DIMECC to lead preparation, Joint RDI projects within the ecosystem.

Industrial metaverse webinars recurring event.