How does Alibaba plan for VR?

The “big events” related to VR/AR that have occurred in Alibaba Group for more than a year.

1. Magic Leap announced that it has received US$794 million in financing, and Alibaba has invested nearly US$1 billion in total.

On February 2, 2016, the American augmented reality (AR) startup Magic Leap announced , received US$793.5 million in investment in a new round of financing, led by Alibaba Group. In May of the same year, Alibaba continued to invest an additional US$200 million, bringing the cumulative investment amount to nearly US$1 billion. So far, Magic Leap has raised a total of US$1.6 billion.

In addition, Google and Qualcomm also participated in Magic Leap’s current round of financing, while new investors include Warner Bros., Fidelity Management & Research Co, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley Investment Management Company.

Magic Leap is an augmented reality platform similar to Microsoft HoloLens. Its main research and development direction is to project three-dimensional images into people's field of vision. However, its research and development technology is still top secret. The augmented reality product currently being developed by the company can be simply understood as a combination of Google Glass and Oculus Rift. But Magic Leap has not yet launched a formal product.

2. Alibaba announced the establishment of a VR laboratory: the "Creator God" plan, Taobao BUY+ and other projects were launched one after another

On March 17, 2016, Alibaba announced the establishment of VR (virtual reality) laboratory, and revealed the group’s VR strategy for the first time. According to reports, Alibaba will leverage its platform advantages to simultaneously promote VR content cultivation and hardware incubation.

It is reported that the first project after the establishment of Alibaba VR Lab is the "Creator God" plan. The goal is to unite merchants to build the world's largest 3D product library and accelerate the realization of a virtual world shopping experience.

Alibaba engineers have completed hundreds of highly detailed product models. The next step will be to develop standardized tools for merchants to achieve rapid batch 3D modeling. Merchants who dare to try new things will soon be able to provide users with VR Shopping options.

On November 1 of the same year, Taobao BUY+ was launched, using VR technology to restore the shopping scene, giving users the opportunity to visit American Target, Macy’s, Costoco, Australian Ranch, Chemist Warehouse, Japan’s Matsumoto Kiyoshi and Tokyo at home Zhai and other 7 shopping malls.

3. Infinity AR received a US$15 million investment from Alibaba and will enter the Chinese market next.

In November 2016, Alibaba invested US$15 million in Infinity and became the largest shareholder of Infinity AR. , owning more than 22% of the company.

Just two months later, at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) held in Las Vegas in January 2017, Infinity showed the market with the developed model: At present, the This technology is relatively mature, and Infinity’s next step will be to cooperate with Chinese manufacturers to achieve large-scale mass production of augmented reality glasses.

4. Alibaba Alipay and Tencent QQ’s “AR Red Envelope” Battle

On January 18, Alipay launched the AR “Collect Five Blessings and Share 200 Million” red envelope award event. On the first day, 9 million people gathered.

On January 22, Tencent QQ’s New Year AR+LBS red envelope event was officially launched. In landmark buildings in more than a dozen cities, Penguin hid 250 million red envelopes and 3 billion coupons. Within 10 hours of going online, more than 100 million people had won prizes.

5. AR company Lumus received a US$6 million investment from Alibaba

It was reported on January 20, 2017 that Israeli augmented reality (AR) glasses company Lumus received a US$6 million investment from Alibaba. . Lumus started with military hardware and now focuses on the B2B AR market, producing optical engines, a key part of AR glasses and helmets. In December 2016, Lumus received US$30 million in Series C investment from HTC and others.

6. "Shiliyangchang" Nanjing Lucheng Ma Yun New Retail Test Site

On February 20, 2017, Alibaba and Bailian Group, the largest retail company in the country, reached a group-level strategic cooperation. Based on big data and Internet technology, the two parties will carry out all-round cooperation in six areas including full-format integration innovation, new retail technology research and development, efficient supply chain integration, membership system interoperability, payment and financial interconnection, and logistics system collaboration.

In Shanghai, Bailian owns most of Nanjing Road. In the future scenario, people will lie at home, put on VR headsets, and stroll around Nanjing Road without leaving home.

7. VR/AR becomes an important puzzle piece for Jack Ma’s new retail

On March 9, 2017, at the “2017 China E-commerce and Retail Innovation International Summit” held in Shanghai, Alibaba The Research Institute officially released the "New Retail Research Report" (hereinafter referred to as the "Report"), which provided the first systematic interpretation of the new retail concepts and methodologies that are of concern to the outside world.

The report believes that VR technology will become a network portal similar to PC. In the future, people can visit online malls through VR and place shopping orders. The new retail application fields of VR are mainly in BUY+ shopping, car test driving, travel experience, etc. In addition to conventional vision or conventional viewfinders, AR technology overlays virtual image information layers and can be widely used in retail upgrades.

8. WayRay, an AR car navigation company, received US$18 million in financing, led by Alibaba.

On March 14, 2017, WayRay, a Swiss AR car navigation company, announced that it had received US$18 million in Series B. Financing. The lead investor is Alibaba, and other investors include Sequoia Capital, 500 Startups, Intel Capital, Accel Partners, New Enterprise Associates, and Y Combinator. Currently, WayRay’s cumulative financing has reached US$30 million.

According to the official website, WayRay was established in 2102, with its headquarters in Switzerland, its R&D center in Russia, and its sales and marketing departments in the United States. It will open an office in Shanghai in the future. Currently, WayRay’s official website mainly lists two products: Navion, a holographic AR car navigator, and Element, a driving habit recorder. The China Augmented Reality Industry Alliance (AR Alliance or ARA) believes that through Alibaba’s series of actions, it can be seen that Alibaba pays more attention to the development of the AR field.