HTC Corporation has signed a Strategic Partnership Agreement with the Shenzhen Municipal Government. Under the agreement, the Shenzhen Municipal Government in China will support HTC in setting up the China VR Research Institute and the two parties will work together to establish the 10 billion RMB Shenzhen VR Investment Fund.
"It is a great honor for us to enter into the Strategic Partnership Agreement with the Shenzhen Municipal Government. We hope that we can take this opportunity to merge HTC's advanced technologies and first-class, global talents together with Shenzhen's local industry and academic institutes as organized and coordinated by the Shenzhen Municipal Government,” says Cher Wang, Chairwoman of HTC
“Together, with this research institute's multiple R&D centers and bolstered by the support of industry alliances and the investment fund, we will accelerate the development of the VR industry in Shenzhen and elevate the city's R&D capabilities to an international level. We are dedicated to exploring the world of VR, and hope to usher in a new era together with Shenzhen.”
Shenzhen is the first city in China to be identified as a Special Economic Zone and has a history of independent innovation. It boasts a strong foundation for the electronic information industry, offering the complete industry chain, accessible services, and supporting facilities. This makes the city extremely globally competitive in terms of R&D, commercialization and international expansion.
Within the VR industry alone, Shenzhen boasts many homegrown companies along various parts of the industry chain, from device manufacturing to content generation and distribution to application. In addition to a strong capacity for innovation, these companies seek to cooperate with fellow enterprises.
From June to October this year, HTC assisted the Shenzhen Municipal Science and Technology Innovation Committee in creating the Action Plan for Promoting Technological Innovation and Industry Application in Shenzhen's VR Industry (2016-2020). This cooperation was instrumental in laying a foundation of collaboration for the future development of VR.
The partnership will leverage HTC's advantages in VR technology and talent while focusing on unleashing breakthroughs in the core technologies of sensors, display, graphics, data visualization, human-machine interaction and other related areas. It will also create an innovation system in which enterprises, universities, research institutes, and investment organizations all participate and drive the evolution of the ecosystem together.
VR technology applications across various industries, such as healthcare, military, engineering, design, and manufacturing, will be highlighted.
The Shenzhen VR Investment Fund was established by the Shenzhen Industry Guiding Fund (or Venture Capital Fund) and HTC. It aims to attract enterprises involved in the VR industry and investment from within China and beyond. The fund, with an initial scale of 10 billion RMB, will become the world's largest single VR-focused fund, assisting the development of the VR sector as well as accelerating the growth of China's VR ecosystem.
HTC has been consistently active in promoting the robust development of the VR industry. Its Vive X Accelerator program was announced globally in April this year, gathering talented developer teams across the globe. The first round kicked off in August in Taipei, San Francisco, Beijing and Shenzhen, while applications for the second cycle conclude on December 1st, 2016.
Building on the success of Vive X Accelerator, VRVCA (Virtual Reality Venture Capital Alliance, www.vrvca.com) was founded on August 31st of this year and currently counts the world's leading 42 investors as members. VRVCA holds more than 14 billion USD in investible capital. With broad industry support from IVRA (Industry of Virtual Reality Alliance, www.ivra.com), VRVCA aims to accelerate entrepreneurship and innovation in the global VR industry. HTC invites all Chinese companies dedicated to the flourishing of the VR industry to join the unprecedented wave of innovation, and shape a healthy and versatile ecosystem together.
Vive is a first-of-its-kind virtual reality system developed in partnership by HTC and Valve. Designed from the ground up for room-scale VR, Vive allows true-to-life interactions and experiences thanks to an adjustable headset displaying stunning graphics, two wireless controllers with HD haptic feedback and 360 degree absolute motion tracking.