Looking back at the past few years of AR/VR, it can be said that they have experienced both dramatic ups and downs. In 2014, after Facebook acquired Oculus VR, Google invested $542 million in AR company Magic Leap, ushering in a new era for VR/AR. Almost every year since then has been hailed as the "Year One." However, as 2016 drew to a close, the AR/VR frenzy gradually cooled, primarily due to the technology's inability to keep up with the rapid rise in popularity.

After two years of development, AR/VR has once again become one of the hottest topics. Lin Qiong, founder, chairman, and CEO of Xvisio Technology, stated, "This year, AR/VR is returning to the forefront of technology, as 5G technology will significantly boost the industry. Many say this year is the first year of AR/VR. I believe that the previous year was the introduction of the AR/VR concept, and this year will be the year of its widespread application ."

The promising future of AR/VR is undeniable. Today, AR/VR is making a comeback, generating high expectations. However, in addition to the significant opportunity presented by 5G, the AR/VR industry is in need of a transformation. The high barrier to entry for vSLAM technology has become a major obstacle to its development.

Challenging technological heights, Xvisio Technology grows rapidly despite adverse circumstances.

In January 2015, Microsoft unveiled HoloLens, its holographic glasses, paving the way for a new generation of human-computer interaction. In HoloLens, vSLAM emerged as a key technology for interaction, enabling positioning and 3D scene reconstruction, a key factor in HoloLens's rise to fame.

vSLAM has a wide range of applications in AR/VR, robotics, autonomous driving, and unmanned driving. However, compared to industries like sweepers, Lin Qiong stated that vSLAM technology is even more essential for AR . For VR, the combination of VR and vSLAM creates a fusion of the virtual and real worlds . vSLAM provides a sensory understanding of the real world, solving the problem of enabling machines to "understand the world" and providing the backbone for AR/VR.

In the second half of 2016, Magic Leap, a renowned American AR company, secured three rounds of funding. Since then, a growing number of startups focused on visual technology and its applications have emerged. However, from an industry perspective, vSLAM presents a high barrier to entry. Not only does the technology require extremely high algorithmic requirements, but it also presents significant challenges in hardware adaptability and system integration. Furthermore, the long industry chain hinders many small and medium-sized companies lacking independent vSLAM R&D capabilities. This fundamental core technology is now in the hands of only a handful of industry giants like Microsoft, Google, Apple, Facebook, and Qualcomm.

It was against this backdrop that Xvisio Technology was founded in 2016, focusing on this broad, long-tail market. As a computer vision company developing underlying technologies for spatial perception and cognition (vSLAM + AI), Xvisio Technology specializes in providing high-speed (100fps) edge-processing vSLAM solutions for AR/VR/MR, robotics, AGV, and other fields. These solutions include high-precision position tracking, navigation, obstacle avoidance, and object recognition.

Xvisio Technology's founding team, with over 50 man-years of industry-leading research, provides a crucial foundation for its continued success in this challenging field. Over the past three years, Xvisio Technology has not only established its technological capabilities but also experienced rapid growth.

After securing 16.5 million RMB in angel round funding from Zhongke Chuangxingling at the end of 2017 and establishing its Shanghai headquarters, Xvisio Technology spent the entire year of 2018 completing technology transformation, product launch, market engagement, and verification. In the third quarter of last year, the company sold its first sample and secured its first custom development order. To date, in less than 10 months, its cumulative sales orders have exceeded 13 million RMB, demonstrating the market's strong recognition of Xvisio Technology's solutions.

In March of this year, Xvisio Technology completed its first small-scale production deliveries. Lin Qiong told Yiou that in May, three customers will launch deeply interactive AR products, targeting entertainment, industrial applications, and smart manufacturing. Shortly after Yiou's interview with Lin Qiong, Lenovo launched its first pair of AR glasses, the ThinkReality A6, at the Transform 3.0 @Accelerate conference in the United States on May 14th. This product is based on the customized visual interaction solution provided by Xvisio Technology .

When asked about the goal of Xvisio Technology, Lin Qiong told Yiou that what Xvisio Technology wants to do is to promote the development of the industry through its core technology.

Starting from the industry's pain points, Xvisio Technology uses differentiated positioning to open up growth space

What the AR/VR sector needs most is technological upgrades and cost optimization across the industry to drive AR/VR products from the experimental stage to maturity and truly realize their application. As a key underlying technology, vSLAM plays a crucial role in this process.

Currently, the underlying technology is owned by major companies such as Microsoft, Magic Leap, Google, and Qualcomm. In China, where VSLAM technology is relatively underdeveloped, few companies are interested in it.

In this field, Xvisio Technology has to face industry giants such as Microsoft and Qualcomm. How can Xvisio Technology compete for the market?

In this regard, Lin Qiong said that these large companies, due to their strong market position, are often expensive and have high barriers to cooperation. They are more concerned about large OEM manufacturers of equal status. Many start-up AR/VR hardware manufacturers are shut out, and these companies with unmet needs have become our customers.

More importantly, compared to large enterprises, Xvisio Technology can also provide customized services. Lin Qiong said, " A major characteristic of the AR field is the fragmented market. Adapting to this fragmented market requires customization capabilities . Few companies in China can afford HoloLens because the cost is too high, and 100% customization is impossible."

It is understood that Xvisio Technology has built a multimodal ultra-high-speed VSLAM+AI end-processing visual edge computing platform for the AR/VR and robotics fields. It can not only provide high-precision positioning and tracking, but also has AI expansion capabilities and traditional CV capabilities, allowing users to further develop functions. All these functions and possibilities are integrated into a small end device.

It's worth noting that for high-speed, high-precision posture tracking, vSLAM applications in VR/AR generally require a refresh rate of at least 90fps to mitigate motion sickness and rendering artifacts. According to Lin Qiong, Xvisio Technology has achieved 100fps with vSLAM technology, while the current market maximum speed is only 60-80fps .

When it comes to tracking AR/VR headsets, only 6DoF (degrees of freedom) can provide an immersive interactive experience. However, due to the high barrier to entry for vSLAM (virtual state-of-the-art mapping), most VR/AR products on the market lack independent solutions. Most rely on six-axis gyroscopes to track the user's head rotation, but not their movement. Xvisio Technology's end devices utilize high-speed VPU embedded system integration for on-device processing, directly outputting 6DoF information without consuming system computing power and minimizing power consumption to under 1.5W.

Despite the presence of numerous giants in this market, Xvisio Technology has clearly identified its niche by addressing the industry's pain points. Its strengths lie in low cost, high accuracy, edge processing, and customization, and the industry is in need of such companies. Beyond the market dominated by these giants, Xvisio Technology still has ample room for growth.

Driven by both policies and 5G, AR/VR's underlying technology transformation is imperative

For an emerging industry, the support of national policies will actively promote the overall development of the industry from a macro perspective.

In August 2016, the National Development and Reform Commission issued the "Notice of the General Office of the National Development and Reform Commission on Requesting Organizations to Apply for Special Projects on Building Innovation Capacity in the "Internet +" Field", which pointed out that in order to promote the rapid development of the "Internet +" industry, the National Development and Reform Commission decided to organize and implement special projects on building innovation capacity in the "Internet +" field, and include AR/VR technology in the special construction content.

In January 2017, the General Office of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council issued the "Opinions on Promoting the Healthy and Orderly Development of the Mobile Internet", which mentioned the requirement to speed up the layout of key technologies such as AI/VR/AR, and to achieve breakthroughs in some cutting-edge technologies and disruptive technologies as soon as possible in the world.

At the end of 2018, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "Guiding Opinions on Accelerating the Development of the Virtual Reality Industry" to accelerate the development of my country's virtual reality industry, promote innovation in virtual reality applications, and cultivate new growth points and new momentum for the information industry.

This year, the National Development and Reform Commission released the "Guidelines for Industrial Structure Adjustment (2019 Edition, Draft for Comments)", which mentioned that virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) will be included in the "encouraged" industries in 2019. This means that the country has included these two technologies in the new round of world scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation.

It is not difficult to see from the policy development and changes in recent years that the country is paying more and more attention to the AR/VR industry.

Furthermore, 5G technology will also present a significant opportunity for the AR/VR industry. Lin Qiong stated, "5G will inject a powerful dose of confidence into the entire AR/VR industry, solving many challenges."

5G's high bandwidth and low latency make cloud computing rendering for AR/VR possible, significantly improving the AR/VR experience. Cloud AR/VR will become a new business model and spur industry development. Migrating physical VR/AR hardware to advanced cloud platforms will not only address power consumption issues but also meet AR/VR rendering requirements while significantly reducing device costs for consumers. This will further open up a vast market. Goldman Sachs predicts that the total AR/VR market will reach $80 billion by 2025, roughly equivalent to the current size of the personal computer market .

With strong policy support and the impetus of 5G technology, the AR/VR industry needs comprehensive development, from underlying technologies to offline traffic entry points. Currently, the significant gap between vSLAM modules and front-end product demand needs to be addressed. Therefore, low-barrier, high-precision vSLAM modules are the inevitable trend. Last year, Xvisio Technology was selected as a breakthrough enterprise in key sensing technology for IoT innovation and integration by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in 2018. Lin Qiong stated, "This honor further strengthens our resolve to pursue this path."

Based on its deep understanding of the industry, Xvisio Technology is confident in the future . Undoubtedly, driving changes in key underlying technologies and resolving industry pain points will not only broadly empower manufacturers across the industry chain, helping to expand the market share, but will also actively promote structural changes in the industry landscape, providing a significant driving force for the development and implementation of AR/VR applications .

*All names and brands mentioned are the property of their respective owners.

Original article by Wang Xiaoqing. Reprinted from Yiou (www.iyiou.com). Click here to view the original article.

Xvisio Technology, founded in Silicon Valley in 2016, received angel investment in 2017 from Zhongke Chuangxing, a leading investment arm of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and is based in Shanghai. The company specializes in the development of underlying technologies for spatial perception and cognition (vSLAM + AI). The company specializes in the implementation and production of core components for high-speed (100fps), high-precision VSLAM visual positioning, tracking, navigation, obstacle avoidance, and object recognition solutions for AR/VR/MR, mobile robotics, and drones. The founding team, comprised of eight PhDs from Fortune 500 companies and a series of entrepreneurial ventures, boasts years of industry-leading research achievements. The company currently employs 34 people worldwide, with its global headquarters in Shanghai and subsidiaries in the United States and Europe.

As a system solution provider for AR collaborative operations with spatial computing and VSLAM algorithms as its core and system delivery as its value realization channel, Xvisio Technology has established in-depth cooperative relationships with many well-known benchmark companies in the industry since its establishment and has been widely recognized by the industry.