Huawei Opens VR OpenLab For Cloud VR Push

Tom Jowitt,
virtual reality headset

Chinese giant hopes to convince industry to turn cloud virtual reality into a fully functioning ecosystem

Chinese network equipment manufacturer Huawei is the latest organisation to jump aboard the Virtual Reality (VR) bandwagon.

It has launched what it is calling a Virtual Reality (VR) OpenLab industry co-operation plan, in an effort to promote the development of the cloud VR industry.

Cloud VR is still very much in its infancy. The idea is that the cloud and the processing power of its data centres are used to generate, deliver and stream virtual reality at a relatively low cost to the end user.

oculus vr 1Industry Co-operation

Of course, this would require significant changes and upgrades of the backhaul network, as current network architecture and technologies are still unable to effectively support Cloud VR.

Huawei realises that upgrading the backhaul network requires an industry-wide commitment. This is because serious uptake of cloud VR would result higher latency and bandwidth requirements on the network.

This means that industry partners have to be presented with solutions that would create value and construct business models.

Huawei has previously called for the mobile industry to come together to develop faster mobile broadband technologies.

Although some observers still have to be convinced of the need for virtual reality, Huawei pointed to Gartner research, which predicted that VR development in games, videos, and live broadcast will increase drastically in the next two years, at least according to Gartner’s 2017 Hype Cycle for emerging technologies).

With its VR OpenLab, Huawei aims to “promote the prosperity of Cloud VR, facilitate technological innovations, incubate business scenarios, and construct a comprehensive Cloud VR industry ecosystem.”

Essentially, the VR OpenLab industry cooperation plan aims to help upstream and downstream partners jointly explore the development path of the Cloud VR industry. It will focus on four research directions: business application scenarios, service solutions, bearer network innovations, and operators’ service implementation.

“Through end-to-end industry cooperation, VR OpenLab bridges the ecosystem breakpoints and fully promotes the commercial popularization of VR,” said Huawei.

VR Push

It said that currently, 30 partners have already joined the VR OpenLab industry co-operation plan.

A number of tech firms are developing their Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality offerings, as its applicability is explored for computer games right through to education.

Indeed, VR was once only the preserve of science-fiction, but it has now risen to become one of the most exciting developing areas of technology today.

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