ETRI Secures Leadership in International Standardization of the Metaverse

Newswise — The activities of Focus Group¹⁾ on metaverse (FG-MV), a special group under the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) of the United Nations (UN), which have been led by a Korean expert, have successfully concluded its lifetime with a total of 52 international standards deliverables approved.
^{1) Focus Group: An instrument to provide an additional working environment for the quick development of standards in specific areas, acting as an incubator for future emerging issues. It is open to non-ITU members.}

Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) announced that ITU FG-MV activities, led by Dr. Shin-Gak KANG, the chairman of FG-MV, have been successfully finalized at the 7th FG-MV²⁾ meeting, which was held on 12-13 June 2024 in Geneva, Switzerland. It is expected that the deliverables³⁾ developed by FG-MV will provide the foundation for and be utilized by many SDOs (standards development organizations) as well as ITU for subsequent metaverse standardization work.
^{2) FG-MV (ITU Focus Group on Metaverse): A focus group dedicated to the standardization of metaverse issues, which was established under the TSAG.
3) Deliverable: A type of standard documents that are developed as a result of the standardization activities of Focus Group. Deliverables are then provided to the ITU-T Study Groups (SGs) for the subsequent standardization and it can be adopted as a ITU-T standard document such as Recommendation, Technical Report.}

During the past 18 months of FG-MV activities, a total of 52 deliverables related to the metaverse were approved, covering not only technical issues related to the metaverse, but also various aspects such as security and privacy, accessibility, regulation, competition, and sustainability. This is evaluated as an unprecedented outcome among Focus Group activities operated by ITU, and is being recalled as even more surprising achievements considering the very short period of life time.

ETRI has led the development of six standard deliverables including ▲Metaverse Overview ▲Platform Interoperability ▲Digital Twin-based integration of Virtual and Real World, etc. In addition, ETRI also announced that they have successfully developed 4 more standard documents (▲Definition of Metaverse & Glossary ▲Interoperability of Object Identification between Platforms ▲Reliable Metaverse, etc.) through joint development work with domestic and foreign institutions.

As a result of active participation and leading role in FG-MV activities, Korea’s metaverse-related technology is expected to have a significant impact on the future metaverse market. In particular, Korea’s proposal established the concept of standard technology and related standard deliverables were developed for providing interoperability between metaverse platforms and services for the first time in the world. This is expected to contribute greatly to the growth of the metaverse industry and services worldwide in the future.

In addition, based on the proposal made by FG-MV, ITU held the first UN Virtual Worlds Day in Geneva, Switzerland on June 14. 18 UN agencies and more than 350 participants from around the world has participated in the event, successfully reaching a consensus to promote the realization of a sustainable future based on the metaverse.

The establishment of FG-MV was proactively proposed by Republic of Korea and unanimously approved by the Member States and Sector members attending the ITU-T Telecommunications Standardization Advisory Group (TSAG)⁴⁾ meeting in December 2022. Dr. Shin-Gak KANG of the ETRI, Korea was nominated as the sole candidate and elected as the chairman of FG-MV.
^{4) ITU-T TSAG (Telecommunication Standardization Advisory Group): An advisory group established in 1993 by ITU to cope with the rapidly changing IT standardization environment.}

Taking into account the regional balance of ITU member countries around the world and the characteristics of affiliated organizations, 11 experts from around the world from various fields (government, industry, academia, international organizations, etc.) were appointed as vice-chairmen. A total of 9 working groups (WG) and 20 task groups (TG) on major topics were also formed and worked for each specific technical field. As such, more than 500 global experts have participated in FG-MV to conduct various standards development works and related activities on the metaverse.

FG-MV held a total of seven regular meetings in countries belonging to different regions such as Saudi Arabia, China, Mexico, and Switzerland. A total of 1,156 contributions submitted by experts from various fields in the world were reviewed and discussed through 155 times of WG and TG electronic meetings, and standard development work for 63 work items has been carried out over a period of 18 months.

In connection with the standardization activities of FG-MV, ITU metaverse forums have been held five times to promote standardization activities and encourage active participation of users and stakeholders from various fields related to metaverse. The metaverse has received a lot of attention, with records being set, such as more than 17,000 concurrent viewers connecting to the forum event’s live streaming platform.

Bang Seung-chan, the president of ETRI, stated that “The metaverse is widely regarded as a future platform and service technology that will greatly advance the Internet we are currently using. It will bring about great changes in our society as a whole and lead innovations in various industrial fields in the future.”

ETRI claimed that its experience in leading the global standardization activities of ITU FG-MV has contributed to enhancing the institution’s technological influence and position in international standardization organizations, and is also in line with one of the main goals of ETRI’s institutional operation plan, ‘Making the jump to a world-class research institution and leading the world.’

FG-MV’s achievements will be used as the basis for the future standards development activities of ITU-T study groups (SGs) in the next study period (2025-2028). Additionally, it is expected to have an impact on the relevant standardization activities on metaverse of many SDOs.

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About Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI)

ETRI is a non-profit government-funded research institute. Since its foundation in 1976, ETRI, a global ICT research institute, has been making its immense effort to provide Korea a remarkable growth in the field of ICT industry. ETRI delivers Korea as one of the top ICT nations in the World, by unceasingly developing world’s first and best technologies.