India’s talent pool playing a huge role in shaping the future of Metaverse: Mark Zuckerberg
Speaking at the company’s ‘Fuel for India’ event, Mark Zuckerberg said that he is excited about India’s role in building the future of Metaverse. Meta Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg placed a strong bet on India’s creator and developer community, saying that the country and its vast talent pool will be a huge part of building the future of Metaverse experiences for billions.
The company, formerly known as Facebook, changed its name in October to signal a shift to become an emerging computing platform focused on virtual reality from just being a social media giant.
“When we’re thinking about what the next generation is going to look like in terms of where all these creators and developers going to come from, who are going to really build the foundation of the metaverse I think it’s just obvious that India is going to be a huge part of that,” said Zuckerberg at the Fuel for India event on Wednesday.
In Zuckerberg’s vision, people will meet and communicate by entering virtual environments, whether they’re talking with colleagues in a boardroom or hanging out with friends in different corners of the world.
“I am really excited about the role that India will play in building this future. India’s talent pool — the engineers, developers and creators, and your whole vibrant start-up ecosystem are playing a huge role in shaping the future,” Zuckerberg said.
He said that India is on track to have the largest app developer base in the world by 2024, and already has one of the largest spark AR developer communities. He added that the online gaming sector in India has seen a lot of growth over the past few years and Meta’s investment in gaming in the country keeps growing as it looks at how it’s going to take shape in the metaverse.
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Meta is hoping to double up its social-media user base of more than 3 billion people globally, into an audience that will embrace immersive digital experiences. He said for the metaverse to work, this isn’t going to get built by any one company or even a small number of companies – Meta is going to need to empower millions of creators around the world.
“And that’s what we’re so excited about seeing here in India is the developer ecosystem, the ecosystem of individual entrepreneurs, the spirit around that is one of the things that makes India so special and is (why) I think we’re going to see a huge amount of [the foundation] get built here in India,” he added.
Meta’s Facebook has 434 million monthly active users in India, more than double the size of its user base in its home market. WhatsApp has a user base of over 400 million in India. No official statistics on Instagram’s userbase in India are available but according to data portal Statista, Instagram is accessed by 200 million users in India.
“We want to make sure that we can do our part to continue unlocking this (India’s) potential. Because I think the experiences that people build here are going to make people’s lives better all around the world.”
