Dubai has officially become the new Mecca of the Metaverse. The UAE capital has been at the forefront of innovation and digital transformation for some years now, but now thanks to funds allocated by the government and offshore investments, conquering the metaverse is closer than ever.
The government of Dublin, and in particular Crown Prince Hamdan bin Mohammed, is doing what it can to steal Silicon Valley’s lead as the tech capital. The prince recently formed the Higher Committee for Future Technology and the Digital Economy to oversee the city’s drive to become a leading global hub for the adoption of metaverse technology. The strategy aims to make Dubai a global hub for the metaverse community and to attract more than 1,000 companies in the fields of blockchain and metaverse, as well as to further Dubai’s ambitions to support more than 40,000 virtual jobs by 2030. The project aims to recreate authentic real-life events and places where users from all over the world can relive the greatest attractions and landmarks of Dubai and Abu Dhabi from the comfort of their home. The Beta version of the event will be inaugurated during the Dubai Metaverse Strategy on 28 and 29 September this year.
The race to the metaverse has already started a few years ago even before Zuckerberg changed the name of Facebook to Meta. The investment potentials are endless. They range from games to virtual terrains. Companies like Sandbox and Decentraland are among the biggest players in this sector, particularly when it comes to entertainment. Currently Decentraland with its management of ICE Poker drives 60% of the total traffic of the metaverse. But this is one of the thorniest issues when it comes to the metaverse as gambling is illegal under Islamic laws. According to experts from Miglioricasinoitalia.it However, the phenomenon of gambling in the metaverse is a trend to be followed carefully because they could completely revolutionize the sector. Mainly because the preferred virtual currency are crypto and NFT which are born and operate on decentralized systems and therefore without institutional ties. It is not yet clear how this sector will be regulated in the future, especially in countries with more traditional and conservative values.
In any case, the future of tech is strongly answered in the metaverse and the UAE wants to be the first to discover gold. According to the Dubai Media Office, this project is not just a form of virtual tourism but wants to shape the future of artificial intelligence by investing and establishing partnerships to strengthen the global digital economy.