Nextech Builds ‘Mini-Metaverse’ for City of London

The new AR experience aims to unite emerging technologies with the fine arts and history for the British capital

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Nextech AR City of London
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Published: October 13, 2021

Demond Cureton

Nextech AR Solutions announced on Wednesday it had built a “mini-Metaverse” at “Harmony at London Wall Place” in the City of London backed by the firm’s spatial mapping technology and software development kit (SDK).

Firms Culture Mile and Brookfield Properties co-commissioned The Harmony at London Wall Place, and the experience uses several location-anchored AR artworks to curate visuals and music from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama along with the London Symphony Orchestra.

The City of London Corporation governs the City of London’s historic centre and ‘Square Mile’ financial sector, and is among one of the world’s oldest democracies which predates the British Parliament.

The project comes just months after Nextech AR acquired ARway, a British spatial computer mapping firm incorporating artificial intelligence (AI) in its solutions to create “hyper-accurate, location-based 3D mapping” tools vital to developing mini-Metaverses.

Nextech AR’s latest SDK for augmented reality (AR) projects can frame digital world “in a few minutes” with mapping technologies for “location persistent AR experiences” for eCommerce, AR wayfinding and advertising, the company’s HoloX Human Holograms, and AR Portals, among others.

Baran Korkmaz, Founder of ARway, said that as a London resident, it was “gratifying” to see the mini-Metaverse “launched in my own backyard”.

He continued, stating,

“The City of London’s adoption of ARway’s and Nextech’s mini-metaverse technology, implemented at large scale is a real validation and proof of concept. This is a unique use case involving major players – Guildhall and the London Symphony Orchestra and our technology is allowing thousands of users to experience this artwork through augmented reality”

Such projects were “just the beginning”, Korkmaz said, adding he was confident the City of London use case would generate further interest on the Metaverse globally.

Users can explore AR artworks in the mini-Metaverse on the Harmony at London Wall Place app.

Evan Gappelberg, Nextech Chief Executive, added his firm would continue to execute its business plan to build AR solutions at scale, adding the Metaverse solution was an example of how the technology apply to “real-world, revenue generating” activities.

“The potential is tremendous for the mini-metaverse to unify human-machine understanding and connect the digital and physical worlds in order to advance education and all interactive environments”

He concluded his enterprise had the “most complete set of AR tools” in the world and was “perfectly positioned” to monetise the Metaverse with its software-as-a-service (SaaS) platforms.

The news comes after a recent study from AR giant Snap and Deloitte Digital found that roughly 75 percent of the global population and nearly all smattphone users would be frequent AR users.

Key takeaways from the Snap Consumer AR Global Report 2021 noted 76 percent of respondents believed AR would become a practical tool in their everyday lives, and interacting with products with AR experiences led to 94 percent higher conversion rates, among other findings.

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