According to NVIDIA’s industry general manager for media and entertainment Richard Kerris, the metaverse is the network of the next generation of the web. The metaverse will be primarily spatial and 3D, thereby allowing for immersive experiences in virtual worlds.
With the current web–Kerris cites–users experience it as a passive audience—like witnesses, unable to properly engage or interact except through typing. While we can read, shop, and publish our thoughts, there's room for more physical engagement and experiences.
In the metaverse, the application of 3D and Virtual Reality technology will allow for us to actually experience and engage with what’s presented to us in a more bodily and immersive fashion, and NVIDIA is building exactly for this.
Collaboratively Constructing with Kerris’ Omniverse
To help realize this future, NVIDIA has developed a revolutionary software known as Omniverse, a platform for building digital twins and metaverses. It leverages Universal Scene Description (USD) to allow for collaborative construction of 3D scenes in real time, using high-fidelity graphics and ray tracing technology. Omniverse has rapidly become essential to many industries, as the software allows workers to collaborate despite using different software and file formats, freeing employees to work more efficiently through streamlined workflows and easy communication.
Omniverse has already been put to use to design digital twins across multiple sectors: In the automotive industry, BMW has built and designed digital twins of its factories to re-evaluate processes. The retail company Lowe’s is building digital twins of its stores to improve user experience by enhancing layouts and consistently monitoring inventories. Even Amazon is using omniverse to create digital twins of its warehouses, mainly for training AI. At present, Omniverse has been downloaded over 200,000 and that number is rapidly growing as companies begin to understand its true value.
The Omniverse Cloud
To further NVIDIA’s Omniverse tool, they recently announced Omniverse Cloud, which moves the entire platform to the next level through cloud computing. Omniverse Cloud offers an end-to-end suite of cloud solutions “built for designing, publishing, and experiencing rich 3D internet applications” collaboratively.
This makes Omniverse available to everyone, anywhere, and on any device. Thanks to cloud computing technology, it also means that business which cannot access or support NVIDIA’s RTX Platform can still make use of Omniverse’s capabilities.
Ultimately, Kerris has described Omniverse as the metaverse’s Operating System—while this might be a tall order, it’s clear that many key-players in the nascent metaverse field are taking NVIDIA and Omniverse very seriously.
