BEIJING, December 21 (TMTPOST) — Chinese search giant Baidu launched China’s first metaverse product “Xirang” on Tuesday, which is now in beta test and grants early access to users with invitation codes.

Baidu announced that Xirang will open access to all users on December 27. The company’s signature developer conference Create 2021 will be held in Xirang, which will be the first time for a major conference to be held in the metaverse in China.

Image Source: Baidu

Sight, hearing and interaction are the three major technical difficulties that hold back the development of the metaverse, Baidu’s vice president Ma Jie said. They are the reasons why Xirang’s current version is named -6.0. “Xirang’s version code remains to be a negative number after over one year’s development because there is still room for improvement. Its current performance still lags behind our expectations,” Ma explained. “The metaverse is still in its early phase and it will develop further over time. This requires collective efforts from the entire community.”

Baidu’s advantages in sight, hearing and natural language processing, as well as Baidu Cloud’s computing power, enabled Xirang to achieve live and simultaneous interaction among 100,000 people and concert-level sound simulation.

Baidu aims to become an infrastructure platform for the metaverse, providing key technologies such as AI and cloud computing for Xirang and other metaverse products.

Xirang consists of different virtual spaces, in which users can engage in a variety of interactions. According to Xirang’s official site, users can organize activities such as exhibitions, conferences, concerts and competitions in Xirang. Its use scenes include education, marketing, online conferencing, training and exhibitions.

Xirang is a planet with a Mobius strip shape. The virtual city on it features a lot of Chinese elements. Users can enter Xirang via PC, smartphone and VR device. In Xirang, users can create their own virtual avatar and participate in activities like attending seminars, shopping, exchange events and exhibitions.