German engineering and technology company Siemens works together with chipmaker Nvidia to launch a metaverse where companies can lower the cost of running their factories and accelerate new production designs.
As Reuters reported on Wednesday (June 29), the agreement is the foundation of Siemens Xcelerator, the company’s new open, cloud-based digital platform, aimed at expanding the company’s digital business.
“Siemens Xcelerator will make it easier than ever for businesses to navigate digital transformation — faster and at scale,” CEO Roland Busch said in a statement.
Learn more: Qualcomm Opens $100 Million Metaverse Fund
Siemens, which bought Brightly Software for $1.58 billion earlier this week, is diving deeper into the digital space as it offers faster growth rates and higher margins than its old train and industrial powertrain and automation businesses, according to Reuters.
The company says Xcelerator is an umbrella term for services that allow customers to visualize projects before construction begins.
“We can essentially replace the need to build something in the real world first,” said Tony Hemmelgarn, CEO of Siemens Digital Industries Software.
He added that the platform ensures that products “start working well before we commit to building them in the real world when it gets very expensive and difficult to change.”
As Reuters points out, these are just two companies working in the metaverse, a shared virtual platform where people can interact in digital environments.
Also see: China’s Tencent Holdings Launches Metaverse Division
Earlier this week, China’s Tencent Holdings launched an “extended reality” (XR) unit to leverage the burgeoning metaverse by creating new software and hardware for the tech giant’s business and entertainment group.
And in March, Qualcomm, a wireless technology company, created a $100 million fund to invest in virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) technology to kickstart the metaverse.
The Snapdragon Metaverse Fund is designed to “enable developers and companies of all sizes to push the boundaries of what’s possible as we enter this new generation of spatial computing,” Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon said in a statement.
