[Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

East China's Shandong province has established a three-year action plan (2022-24) to develop a world-class virtual reality industry worth more than 100 billion yuan ($15.73 billion).

According to local authorities, the virtual reality business is an important frontier field of next-generation information technology. Shandong has invested in intelligent hardware, content production, application scenarios, platform services, and other areas in recent years to help the virtual reality industry grow.

In the virtual reality industrial chain, the province has assembled more than 200 firms and affiliated institutions, with an output value of more than 60 billion yuan in 2021 and shipments of virtual reality products totaling over 10 million, an increase of more than 130 percent. It has 13 high-end research and development institutions that specialize in virtual reality.

However, the absence of an agglomeration effect in the supply chain, a shortage of high-end talent, restricted industry application, and other significant issues have emerged as major challenges for the growth of virtual reality in Shandong.

According to the action plan, Shandong will build a "1+4+N" regional layout of the virtual reality industry with Qingdao as the center, Jinan, Weifang, Yantai and Weihai linked together, and cooperation from other cities.

Meanwhile, the province will optimize and improve the industrial chain, improve the ecology of industrial development, strengthen collaborative technological innovation, improve public service capacity, and carry out industrial application demonstration projects.

More efforts will be made to foster and strengthen market entities, stimulate the market's internal vitality, and strengthen the introduction and cultivation of talents to strongly support the development of the virtual reality industry.