On a Zuck and a Prayer: Facebook’s Metaverse Requires Computing Tech that Doesn’t Yet Exist

Corporate media tech outlet Protocol notes that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s vision of metaverse requires technology that does not yet exist. One expert explains: “The biggest things that we are looking at in supercomputers today still need to be improved in order to be able to deliver [a metaverse] type of experience.”

In an article titled “Mark Zuckerberg’s metaverse will require computing tech no one knows how to build,” Protocol notes that the metaverse as Mark Zuckerberg describes it is still out of reach until we see another significant jump in technological capabilities.

Despite multiple companies like Facebook, Microsoft, and Disney betting big on the future of the metaverse, mass adoption is still a far way away until computer chips, data centers, and networking equipment catch up to the vision of creators like Zuckerberg who see the metaverse as a brand new digital reality.

Jerry Heinz, the former head of Nvidia’s Enterprise Cloud unit, commented on this telling Protocol: “The biggest things that we are looking at in supercomputers today still need to be improved in order to be able to deliver [a metaverse] type of experience.”

Zuckerberg has described his vision of the metaverse as “[an] embodied internet that you’re inside of rather than just looking at” that would allow you to do everything you can online at the moment as well as “some things that don’t make sense on the internet today, like dancing.”

Creative Strategies CEO Ben Bajarin told Protocol: “For something that is a true mass market, spend-many-hours-a-day doing [kind of activity, we’re looking] at generations of computing to leap forward to do that. What you’re going to see over the next few years is an evolution to what you see today, with maybe a bit more emphasis on AR than VR. But it’s not going to be this rich, simulated 3D environment.”

Protocol writes:

Without a generational leap in computing, a lower-fidelity version of the Zuckerverse is attainable. Assuming users will settle for graphics somewhat better than Second Life was able to achieve a decade ago, it should be possible in the longer run to make something that achieves some of the goals, such as a persistent, internet-connected virtual world. Building that version of the metaverse will require better networking tech, the specialized chips Domingos described and possibly something like artificial intelligence computing in order to handle some of the more complex but mundane workloads.

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But it’s going to take a long time to get there. Zuckerberg’s vision of the metaverse could be decades away, and after losing $20 billion on the effort so far, it’s not clear Meta will have the cash to turn that vision into reality.

Read more at Protocol here.

Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or contact via secure email at the address lucasnolan@protonmail.com