Understanding the Metaverse: Concepts, Trends, and a Six‑Layer Architecture

What is the Metaverse? In a world where global internet penetration is already high, the Metaverse is presented as the next stage of the internet and a new traffic environment for the era.

Why is the Metaverse concept so popular? Major overseas tech giants such as Facebook, Microsoft, Nvidia, Roblox, and Unity are proactively investing in it.

The Metaverse as the next major industrial and internet transformation: Each major innovation defines an era and drives civilization forward, dramatically changing people’s lives, experiences, and value perception.

The Metaverse’s transformation consists of countless technology and application nodes, and we are still in its early stage, though the full vision remains distant.

Technology‑application positive feedback loop: Technological breakthroughs drive application and software iteration, which in turn creates market demand that fuels further low‑level technology development, forming a continuous cycle rather than a chicken‑or‑egg problem.

Predictability of technology versus unpredictability of the Metaverse: Just as the 19th‑century could not foresee how electricity would reshape the world, early internet users could not predict the exact shape of the mobile internet era.

The core of the Metaverse is the iteration and advancement of underlying technologies: While the exact form of the Metaverse‑era internet is uncertain, the general direction of technology is traceable; early‑stage tech‑application cycles can be monitored, forming the foundation for Metaverse research.

We divide the Metaverse’s technology‑application positive feedback loop into a six‑layer architecture: Core underlying hard technology, hardware computing platforms, systems, software, applications, and the economic system that enables the entire ecosystem.

Six‑Layer Architecture

6‑Layer Architecture: Core underlying hard technology, hardware computing platform, system, software, application, and the economic system that powers the whole Metaverse ecosystem.

In the second stage of the Metaverse, it may become a continuously online, real‑time rendered 3D internet (virtual world) that connects reality and virtuality, achieving near‑100% penetration in daily life and 24‑hour usage, covering B2B, B2C, and government sectors.

Compared with overseas, domestic tech giants focus more on underlying technologies such as 5G, cloud computing, and AI, and have not yet presented a clear Metaverse roadmap like Facebook or Nvidia.

Nevertheless, domestic opportunities remain vast: platforms like iQIYI and Bilibili have abundant video copyrights, are exploring virtual human technology and virtual idols, and have begun VR applications; Alibaba’s strengths in traffic, ecosystem, cloud, and digital finance also give it competitive advantage in the Metaverse trend.

In addition to watching the Metaverse strategies of major players, attention should also be paid to finer sub‑domains such as VR/AR, gaming, virtual social, and virtual humans.

Underlying technologies of the Metaverse and three development trends of virtual human technology: High fidelity (1:1 visual replication of appearance, expression, and motion), intelligence (voice recognition, natural language processing, speech synthesis), and tooling (lightweight, user‑friendly tools for rapid creation of high‑quality assets).