Horizon Europe’s newest partnership with industry will develop European tech for computer-simulated environments
Photo credits: nmedia / BigStock
At the end of 2025, the EU launched a research and innovation partnership for developing European-made virtual worlds. Here’s what you need to know about it.
Virtual worlds are computer-simulated immersive environments. Most know the idea from Mark Zuckerberg’s failed $70 billion social media project The Metaverse. But the EU is putting a different spin on the concept, in which it is less about creating alternative realities and more about managing already dominant digital technologies.
“If you take away the digital world, our physical world stops spinning,” said Bert Pluymers, industrial research manager at KU Leuven, which is part of the Virtual Worlds Association partnership. “What this means is that we need to invest in technologies where these digital worlds are developed in a safe,…
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