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Orlando wants to be the center of the metaverse. The City of Florida has teamed up with Game engine creator Unity Technologies to create a digital twin of the city.
The city will be one of the first to test one of the central theories of the metaverse, the universe of virtual worlds all interconnected, as in novels like SnowCrash and Ready Player One† Once the domain of science fiction, the vision for the metaverse is about to become reality.
And Orlando wants to show that the world benefits from connecting virtual worlds with the physical world. As the home of Disney World, Orlando is familiar with the idea of making dreams come true. But it also hopes to expand beyond the Magic Kingdom and become better known as a hub for the metaverse, Web3, and the related industries of augmented reality, virtuality reality, AI, gaming, and simulation training.
“Orlando, for as long as I can remember, has always been defined as one thing: The Magic Kingdom,” said David Adelson, chief innovation officer for the city. “And so what’s interesting is that in the background of all that, which is great stuff, there’s been innovation and technology. For each of the sectors and the building blocks that make up the metaverse, Orlando has been in it for a long time.”
I met Adelson at the recent Augmented World Expo event in Santa Clara, California, and sat down with him for an interview.
The metaverse-related industries have had their roots in Orlando for decades, and now Orlando aspires to be known as the MetaCenter, a metropolitan center known for its fantastical as well as authentic elements. That sounds like a lot of marketing. And that’s it, for now. Many people have their doubts about whether the overhyped metaverse will actually happen. But the deal with Unity shows that the city is serious.
“The parks and attractions that we have are our anchor industries,” Adelson said. “But that’s where the metaverse becomes real. That’s where people first experience it through those experiential entertainment attractions, environments and the technology behind them.”
With augmented reality and virtual reality, Orlando was a $6 billion market for defense-related AR and VR. Because of its defense focus, Unity engine maker Unity Technologies has the largest concentration of Unity licenses in the city of Orlando, Adelson said.
“The developers are in Orlando,” Adelson said. “For the AR and VR departments, the central Florida department is the most active in the world. We have many small companies developing VR and AR for gaming, education and entertainment.”
New research from McKinsey & Co. turns out, the metaverse could grow to $5 trillion by 2030. And it’s not just about games. In fact, games are expected to be smaller than enterprise markets and e-commerce in the metaverse, according to McKinsey.
Companies based in the region include Disney, Universal, Lockheed Martin, Falcon’s Creative, Brand XR, AVT Simulation, and Red 6. Disney, of course, has had a lot of trouble with the state of Florida over Disney’s support for transgender people and Disney’s opposition to the “Don’t Say Gay Law” by the state. But Adelson notes that the city of Orlando is not the same as the state of Florida when it comes to Disney.
“Orlando is not the state of Florida,” Adelson said. “We pride ourselves on being inclusive, working together and things like that, because we’re a melting pot. That makes us who we are.”
The game companies present in Orlando are Electronic Arts, Iron Galaxy, 302 Interactive, Echo Interaction, Unity and GameSim. On the AI side, the companies are Checkr, SoarTech, Kore.ai, Care.ai, MindSphere, and AdventHealth. And in 3D Reconstruction, the selection includes CREOL, UCF’s College of Optics and Photonics.
The Unity Project
The Orlando Economic Partnership (the region’s economic development group) is working with Unity to create a digital twin of the 800-square-mile metro area that will use new 3D technology to map out scenarios for everything from infrastructure to real estate to talent availability and more.
The Unity rendering will capture 3D scans of building exteriors and interiors and will aid in the analysis of grid extensions, traffic flow, traffic light timing and climate change.
The Orlando officer also took part in the ringing of the Nasdaq bell in the metaverse last week by futurist Cathy Hackl, Journey’s main metaverse. Hackl is working with the city to bolster its reputation in the metaverse, and the bell rang in both the physical exchange building and the metaverse.
“I see the area of South Florida that focuses on crypto, all the way to Orlando, the simulation capital of the world, becoming one of the metaverse and Web3 innovation corridors to watch,” Hackl said.
Orlando is home to Full Sail University, a technology and video game university that helps train many of the region’s talent. A total of 550,000 students live within a 100-mile radius of Orlando. While Orlando focuses on science and innovation, nearby Miami is emerging as a cryptocurrency-focused city.
“If you look at the building blocks that will make up the metaverse, it’s shown here,” Adelson said. “Miami can have blockchain and crypto. They paint themselves well with that. But that’s okay. The MetaCenter is where the actual center of the metaverse is created.”
I noticed that Orlando has a high-speed train that connects the city to Miami, and that means that the region’s tech centers are sufficiently connected for collaborative purposes.
Of course, people are concerned that a technical slowdown could be caused by the slump in the larger economy. Adelson noted that more than $1 billion had been invested in Orlando in the first four months of the year, much of it in AI, 3D simulation, optics and photonics.
Adelson acknowledges that many people in Orlando are probably not that aware of the metaverse. But he said that’s part of the campaign point for MetaCenter.
“They feel like it’s just gaming and it is. They don’t understand how many pieces hit the metaverse, and when you loosen those layers, you see how it becomes very real for Orlando,” Adelson said. “There is already so much industry around it. We are not building new industries to handle the metaverse. We’ve had these industries in our pocket for a decade or more.”
While it may take 10 or 15 years for the metaverse to mature, Adelson doesn’t mind. He knows it might take a new generation to adapt to the changes the metaverse will bring, and he watches his 15-year-old son who already spends a lot of time in VR watching movies with friends, the watching football games and doing other things in the metaverse.
“We’re seeing the new generation start to adapt,” he said.
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