Alibaba Group Holding has registered a new company in Beijing named Yuanjing Shengsheng to test the gaming potential of the metaverse, in the latest sign that China’s Big Tech firms are doubling down on what many see as the future of the internet. The new unit, wholly owned by Alibaba’s investment arm, has listed its major business as software development.
It appears that the next commercial frontier is the so-called “metaverse.” The term “metaverse” was first used in science fiction novels. It combines the word “universe” with the prefix.