NEW YORK, Jan. 5, 2022 /PRNewswire/
In conjunction with CES 2022 in Las Vegas, Touchcast today announced the launch of MCity — the world’s first enterprise metaverse, where any company can seamlessly deliver powerful communication, collaboration, commerce, and learning experiences. Companies can now claim their address in the metaverse by registering their .metaverse domain.
Powered by Epic Games’ Unreal Engine, NVIDIA’s AI and Cloud GPUs, Accenture technology services and industry expertise and the Microsoft Cloud, MCity is pioneering the concept of metaverse-as-a-service (MaaS). MaaS lets organizations register their .metaverse domain for free, securely set up their metaverse campus and begin offering immersive experiences that bring people together across time, space and language barriers.
In addition to unveiling MCity, Touchcast also will be hosting the main Metaverse Summit this year at CES as a hybrid experience with more than 20 industry thought leaders, including Andrew Wilson, Chief Digital Officer at Microsoft, Richard Kerris, Vice President, Omniverse Platform Development IGM of M&E at NVIDIA and Bernt Kåre Johannessen, Industry Manager at Epic Games. Included as well are multiple leaders from Accenture sharing their metaverse journey and unique point of view on supporting their clients on their migration into the metaverse.
The Metaverse Summit will be broadcast both in the digital twin of the Touchcast CES booth in MCity and physically as a stunning hologram on the physical stage. CES will mark the world premiere of the Touchcast Metaverse Podium—representing the first in what will be a new generation of metaverse devices.
“The metaverse will connect organizations, employees, partners, and customers in a new digital realm,” said Wilson. “It’s exciting to see this universe unfold and Touchcast’s MCity is a great example of the metaverse coming to life with Microsoft Teams as the first gateway.”
To help enterprises begin their metaverse journey, Touchcast is collaborating with Accenture to help clients take advantage of the next wave of digital innovation.
“With the rise of distributed commerce, employees and customers want the flexibility of hybrid working but also a fundamentally better experience,” said Marc Carrel-Billiard, Marc Carrel-Billiard, senior managing director and Technology Innovation lead at Accenture Technology Innovation Global Lead. “For many, the primary means of interacting with an organization will be digital. But for this interaction to be meaningful, it needs to go far beyond conference-calling and video chats. MCity provides this richer, deeper, persistent digital experience and Accenture will be helping its clients navigate their move to the metaverse.”
Featuring 3D, photoreal environments that were, until recently, only available to high-end games and movies, MCity leverages cloud-based rendering on the Microsoft Azure Cloud powered by NVIDIA GPUs and Maxine software to let any one of the 250 million active users of Microsoft Teams be transported into a metaverse venue to meet, work, shop and learn together with others. Currently available as an invite-only preview, MCity allows companies to migrate current workflows into the metaverse to support a hybrid work reality, without requiring VR headsets, high-end computers or specialized software.
MCity takes advantage of Epic’s Unreal Engine, the world’s most open and advanced real-time 3D creation tool to create digital twins of any corporate campus. Campuses are located on their own blocks in MCity, and companies can claim their MCity address for free, starting today. The growing community of companies and makers that can author Unreal-based experiences will be able to offer their services in MCity through its upcoming Marketplace.
“We are thrilled to see companies such as Touchcast leverage NVIDIA’s foundation of the metaverse to evolve the future of work,” said Kerris. “Today, MCity lets companies move to the metaverse by harnessing the power of cloud-based, high-end rendering on Microsoft Azure, powered by NVIDIA’s GPUs, while supporting Omniverse and open standards for an entire world of 3D assets.”
“At a time when humanity is challenged to think differently about the future of work, we need new paradigms and new tools to imagine a better way of doing things,” said Edo Segal, founder and CEO of Touchcast. “We have been building the technologies for this migration for the past decade, and over the past two years have run mission-critical events for the world’s biggest companies in MCity. Now it’s time to open it up to the rest of the world.”
To claim your .metaverse domain for free now visit the registration page. To join the 2022 Metaverse Summit @ CES