2021 World Conference on VR Industry concludes in Nanchang

The online summit of the 2021 World Conference on VR Industry (WCVRI) held under the theme of “VR Adorns the World: Integrated Development & Innovative Application” came to a close on Oct. 20 in Nanchang, east China’s Jiangxi province. As the permanent host city of the WCVRI, Nanchang has held the event for four consecutive years.

Over 5,000 experts, scholars and entrepreneurs from home and abroad and over 1,000 companies participated in the event and its parallel exhibition, during which a total of 114 projects worth over 70.4 billion yuan ($11 billion) were signed.

In 2016, Jiangxi province started to intensify efforts to boost the development of its VR industry. Thanks to its endeavors over the past five years, the province has attracted and incubated nearly 400 VR companies.

Last year, the combined revenues of Jiangxi’s VR and related industries jumped to 29.8 billion yuan from 4.2 billion yuan in 2018; and during the first eight months of this year, the figure reached 47.6 billion yuan.

At the Xiaolan VR Industry Base in Nanchang Xiaolan Economic and Technological Development Zone, a production line of VR headset provider Pimax is running in high gear; the VR/AR base of China Unicom, a major telecom operator in China, has operated for one year; and the intelligent connected vehicles industrial innovation base of Huawei is under smooth construction.

These projects were all introduced to the city by Tellhow Creative Technology Group, a company based in Nanchang that is dedicated to the development of VR industry.

When the VR industry began to gather pace in Jiangxi in 2016, Tellhow transformed its business and stepped into the VR industry. The company and the Nanchang Xiaolan Economic and Technological Development Zone have invested about eight billion yuan in the construction of the Xiaolan VR Industry Base.

“We have always aimed to establish a chain-based VR enterprise cluster and an ecosystem for the industry,” said Ai Qiang, an executive at Tellhow, adding that the company, together with the Nanchang Xiaolan Economic and Technological Development Zone, has made a lot of efforts to attract large and leading companies along the industrial chain, including encouraging the participation of the industry base’s resident companies, so as to form an enterprise cluster.

In 2019, Pimax was attracted to the Xiaolan VR Industry Base and built Jiangxi’s first VR headset production line. The arrival of Pimax resulted in the gathering of many of the upstream and downstream firms of the industrial chain at the industrial base, including VR equipment component suppliers, assembly service providers, original equipment manufacturers, and content developers, which became an important link for the construction of a VR ecosystem at the industry base.

It is because the Xiaolan VR Industry Base has formed a relatively complete VR industrial chain and ecosystem that China Unicom decided to develop its VR business here, pointed out Zhao Hui, manager of the company’s VR and AR base.

About 43 companies in VR hardware product production, content development and other related fields have been attracted to the Xiaolan VR Industry Base. Ai noted that a VR industry ecosystem is taking shape at a faster pace at the industry base and generating increasing cluster effects.

Motivated by the goal of establishing an industrial chain that covers VR hardware, software and professional services, Jiangxi has strived to attract and cultivate large and famous enterprises, build a VR industry ecosystem, and create a highland of VR industry clusters.