Microsoft, Meta, Alibaba among top tech companies to form Metaverse Standards Forum

Microsoft, Meta, Nvidia, and Alibaba are among the top tech companies to form Metaverse Standards Forum in an attempt to establish interoperability standards. However, Apple, Google, and gaming giants Roblox are among the most prominent names missing from the 36-member list.

According to the press statement released by Metaverse Standards Forum, the founding members include 0xSenses, Academy Software Foundation, Adobe, Alibaba, Autodesk, Avataar, Blackshark.ai, CalConnect, Cesium, Daly Realism, Disguise, the Enosema Foundation, Epic Games, the Express Language Foundation, Huawei, IKEA, John Peddie Research, Khronos, Lamina1, Maxon, Meta, Microsoft, NVIDIA, OpenAR Cloud, the Open Geospatial Consortium, Otoy, Perey Research and Consulting, Qualcomm Technologies, Ribose, Sony Interactive Entertainment, Spatial Web Foundation, Unity, VerseMaker, Wayfair, the Web3D Consortium, the World Wide Web Consortium, and the XR Association (XRA).

“The Metaverse Standards Forum brings together leading standards organizations and companies for industry-wide cooperation on interoperability standards needed to build the open metaverse. The Forum will explore where the lack of interoperability is holding back metaverse deployment and how the work of Standards Developing Organizations (SDOs) defining and evolving needed standards may be coordinated and accelerated. The Forum is open to any organization at no cost. It will focus on pragmatic, action-based projects such as implementation prototyping, hackathons, plugfests, and open-source tooling to accelerate the testing and adoption of metaverse standards, developing consistent terminology and deployment guidelines,” the statement read.

Interoperability Standards

Industry leaders believe the potential of the metaverse will be best realized when built on a foundation of open standards. Building an open and inclusive metaverse at a pervasive scale will demand a constellation of open interoperability standards created by SDOs such as The Khronos Group, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the Open Geospatial Consortium, the Open AR Cloud, the Spatial Web Foundation, and many others.

The Metaverse Standards Forum aims to foster consensus-based cooperation between diverse SDOs and companies to define and align requirements and priorities for metaverse standards—accelerating their availability and reducing duplication of effort across the industry.

“The metaverse will bring together diverse technologies, requiring a constellation of interoperability standards, created and maintained by many standards organizations,” said Neil Trevett, The Khronos Group president.

“The Metaverse Standards Forum is a unique venue for coordination between standards organizations and industry, with a mission to foster the pragmatic and timely standardization that will be essential to an open and inclusive metaverse,” he added.

Meta Stays Committed

Vice-president of metaverse at Meta, Vishal Shah, said the company stays “committed” to making metaverse a possibility.

“Building a metaverse for everyone will require an industry-wide focus on common standards. The Metaverse Standards Forum can drive the collaboration needed to make this possible, and Meta is committed to this work. Creators, developers, and companies will all benefit from the technologies and experiences made possible by common protocols,” said Vishal Shah.

The Metaverse Standards Forum unites organizations to prioritize metaverse interoperability standards and speed up development and deployment through logical and action-based projects.

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