Meta-universe is a new tuyere of the Internet of things, semiconductors become a "new infrastructure".

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1. The Internet of things has entered a period of industrial growth with a potential market space of more than 10 trillion yuan in terms of application and underlying technology.

2. As the foundation of meta-universe, the Internet of things will usher in a broader space for development, and many vertical fields are expected to take the lead in taking advantage of the east wind of meta-universe.

3. Shipments of VR and AR equipment will increase in 2022.

4. with the accelerated development of related technologies, meta-universe will boost the chip industry, which provides the basis for computing.

Financial Associated Press (Shenzhen, reporter Fu Jing) News, as a variety of technology integration, enabling various industries, the Internet of things has developed rapidly in recent years. The 2022 AIoT Industry Panorama report points out that thanks to technology and product development and continued to meet demand, as well as the further release of demand brought about by epidemic prevention at home, the Internet of things market continues to expand. IDC predicts that the global AIoT market will reach 482 billion US dollars in 2022, while another research institution predicts that China's AIoT market will reach 750.9 billion yuan in 2022, accounting for about 24% of the world.

Some people in the industry believe that the overall market space of the Internet of things is more than 10 trillion yuan, and the potential for industry-driven applications is huge. Since the beginning of this year, the hot meta-universe will bring animal networking technology and product applications to provide a broader space for the development of the industry, in which the end-to-side chip manufacturers that provide the basis for computing deserve the attention of investors. However, considering that the industry has not yet reached a clear conclusion on the meta-universe, the relevant trends will be moderately advanced in 2022.

The Internet of things has entered a period of growth at two levels.

"2022 AIoT industry panoramic map report" shows that after more than ten years of development, the current AIoT industry has completed the accumulation stage and entered the growth period. Peng Zhao, founder of the Internet of things think tank, said at the 2021 China AIoT Industry Annual meeting that the decentralized networks of the market began to partially cross, enterprises began to promote ecological integration, and products, productivity, production relations and business models would be reconstructed.

(Tuyuan "report on the panoramic Map of AIoT Industry in 2022")

In an interview with the Financial Associated Press, industry insiders pointed out that the Internet of things will work in both directions of application and underlying technology in 2022.

At the application level, Zhang Yi, chief analyst of Ai Media Consulting, told the Financial Associated Press, "the overall direction of the Internet of things in 2022 is still at the application level, and the two keywords' acceleration 'and' landing 'can be used to summarize the entire Internet of things industry in 2022." Zeng Bokai, an analyst at TrendForce Jibang Consulting, told reporters that "the mainstream Internet of things applications in the 2022 market are expected to focus on smart city environmental monitoring and epidemic prevention management, smart home safety and immersive entertainment, intelligent manufacturing virtual and real integration and digital simulation, as well as intelligent medical telemedicine and precision medicine to help enterprises transform and evolve in the post-epidemic era."

The reporter noted that the current smart meter, intelligent security, smart home rapid infiltration, car networking is expected to land on a large scale within a few years. The report on the panoramic map of AIoT industry in 2022 shows that the large granularity application market has developed one after another, and at present it is mainly focused on the policy-driven and consumption-driven application market. in the next three years, under the continuous promotion of the consumption-driven market represented by home and automobile and the policy-driven application market represented by public utilities and smart cities, the AIoT industry will maintain rapid growth. In the long run, the industry-driven application market has great potential and will become a long-term growth point.

At the technical level, the Internet of things will achieve deficiencies and capacity breakthroughs in the future, and enhance the supply capacity of sensing terminals, so the core targets related to chips, sensors and modules are worthy of attention. Data show that about 1/4 of the Internet of things investment and financing events in China from January to August 2021 were related to semiconductors, and a large number of start-ups poured into the semiconductor market related to the Internet of things. Internet of things core competence suppliers such as network security, sensors, communications, cloud platforms / cloud services, and big data also received continuous attention, accounting for 7.6%, 5.9%, 3.6%, 3.3% and 2.6%, respectively.

From the perspective of industrial chain, the pattern of AIoT industry "end", "edge", "management", "cloud", "use" and "industrial service" is becoming more and more mature. "end" covers end-side components (chip, storage device, module, passive couplet, sensing device, power supply, screen, antenna), end-side AI (perceptual interaction capability, AI chip), operating system, etc.; "edge" involves edge intelligent hardware carrier (edge gateway, server, controller), edge intelligent software platform; "tube" involves wireless communication, satellite couplet, quantum communication. "Cloud" includes cloud platform (communications, Internet, IT, industry, Internet of things and other vendor platforms), AI platform and other capability platforms (security, blockchain, big data); "use" includes consumption-driven applications (smart travel, medical care, wear, family), policy-driven applications (smart city, meter, security, fire protection, energy, parking, etc.), industry-driven applications (industry, logistics, car networking, etc.); In addition, "industrial service" refers to relevant institutions, media, investment funds and so on.

(according to incomplete statistics by reporters of the Financial Associated Press)

Behind the accelerated development, AIoT has been blessed at many policy levels. The term "Internet of things" appears five times in the full text of the 14th five-year Plan, which requires further layout of the infrastructure, access capabilities and application scenarios of the Internet of things. The "three-year Action Plan for the Construction of New Infrastructure of the Internet of things (2021-2023)" jointly issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other eight departments clearly puts forward four major goals: breaking through innovation capability, improving industrial ecology, expanding application scale, and improving support system.

According to relevant plans, new infrastructure of the Internet of things will be initially built in major cities across the country by the end of 2023, while 10 Internet of things enterprises will grow into leading enterprises with an output value of more than 10 billion yuan and can promote the financing and development of small and medium-sized enterprises. the number of physical network connections has exceeded 2 billion, and the revision of more than 40 national or industry standards will be completed. Cinda Securities pointed out that the relevant plans further demonstrate that the Internet of things track has high certainty and high growth, and new applications of AIoT are expected to break out one after another.

According to the statistics of AIoT Industrial Research Institute, there are totally 191 new third-board IoT enterprises that meet the listing requirements of the Beijing Stock Exchange, including 34 in the selected layer and 157in the innovation layer. The total market capitalization of the new third-board IoT enterprises that can apply for listing on the Beijing Stock Exchange is 134.1 billion yuan, which is expected to reach 500 billion in 2 years, or bring great changes to the Internet of things.

Meta-universe becomes a new tuyere of the Internet of things

2021 is recognized as the first year of meta-universe in the industry. A number of people in the Internet of things industry told reporters that the logic of meta-universe is closely related to the Internet of things, is a major tuyere of the Internet of things, the Internet of things industry should grasp the voice of meta-universe.

Zeng Bokai told reporters that the Internet of things is the basis for the development of the meta-universe, and the meta-universe has also become the development vision of the Internet of things. "in 2022, the Internet of things will bring out three main technological battlefields, including the green IoT, that requires environmental sustainability, decarbonization and production, the space IoT that is connected to everything, and the meta-universe IoT that focuses on data calculus and mirrors reality. Meta-universe will become one of the development priorities of the Internet of things in 2022, mainly because the new normal after the epidemic boosts the demand for non-contact and digital transformation, so that the Internet of things continues to focus on CPS, through the combination of 5G, edge computing, AI, etc., to achieve intelligent independent prediction.

Peng Zhao said, "the connotation of meta-universe has gradually shifted from social to industry, which is an opportunity that the Internet of things should seize." Many meta-cosmic applications created in the field of AIoT have been born, including navigation, intelligent buildings, smart cities and so on. For the Internet of things, meta-universe is not only useful, but already in use. The architecture of meta-universe is seven layers, in which the infrastructure layer includes the Internet of things, 5G and AI, which is the key to entering meta-universe. In Peng Zhao's view, what the Internet of things needs to grasp is not the social meta-universe, but the industrial meta-universe, and the Internet of things should be fed back to reality through virtual feedback to enhance people's convenience of life.

Some industry insiders further explained to reporters, "I believe that meta-universe will bring improvement to the industry, but whether meta-universe in 2022 will bring new changes to the Internet of things depends on how we define meta-universe." At present, there is no unified definition of meta-universe in the industry. if meta-universe is the kind of completely virtual world that Zuckerberg said, then the technology should not go that far next year; if you think that meta-universe is from virtual to reality and help reality improve, then there will be a lot of new applications of the Internet of things.

"2022 AIoT Industry Panorama report" shows that AIoT enterprises can participate in all aspects of meta-universe, meta-universe is bound to drive the application of AIoT technology and products, and provide a broader space for its development. For example, all kinds of sensor enterprises in the perception layer provide the basis for the meta-universe to perceive the physical world; the network layer provides transmission channels for the meta-universe to perceive signals from the physical world and access to the meta-universe; the platform layer and the edge layer link and manage everything and provide information and data processing capabilities; and the application layer leads its development results back to and serve the real world based on the meta-universe's ability. Tianfeng Securities also pointed out that the Internet of things is composed of perception layer, network layer and application layer, and each link of the Internet of things is deeply compatible with the meta-universe (flexible sensing, etc.), and is expected to continue to benefit from the demand of the meta-universe in the future.

However, the impact of meta-universe on the Internet of things may not be significant in the short term. Zhang Yi told reporters that the Internet of things will develop rapidly in 2022, and the main factor behind it will not be meta-universe. "at this stage, the reasons for the rapid development of the Internet of things can be summarized into three points: first, the number of 5G base stations continues to increase and 5G networking capacity increases rapidly; second, with the peak of Internet user traffic, new consumption and other investment has been greatly released since the second half of 2020, and then the direction of capital flow will be biased towards hard technology. Third, the upgrading of users and consumption and industrialization. Zhao Xiaoguang, vice president of Tianfeng Securities and director of the research institute, also said publicly recently that from a practical perspective, Yuanyu first entered the social entertainment track, and then used the next 10 years to enter the all-real Internet, such as the Industrial Internet of things.

Meta Universe promotes VR to ship semiconductors or be the first to benefit

VR equipment is regarded as the first entrance to meta-universe. Looking forward to 2022, meta-universe heat will boost VR and AR equipment shipments. TrendForce Jibang Consulting estimates that global VR/AR equipment shipments will reach 12.02 million units in 2022, an increase of 26.4% over the same period last year.

The person in charge of Qualcomm said in an interview with the Financial Associated Press, "Meta is a vision of the Internet of everything. It is like an upgraded version of the Internet, including personalized digital bodies that run through the real and virtual worlds." This will be achieved with the help of VR, AR devices and innovative products and technologies, smartphones and PC will also be extended to the meta-universe, terminals such as smartwatches, headphones and smart hubs will become the physical links of the meta-universe, and meta-universe will promote the emergence of a large number of new terminal forms. It is believed that XR will become the next generation computing platform and achieve the same scale as smartphones. "

Naturally, equipment is inseparable from the support of "infrastructure". IDC believes that the VR all-in-one equipment of the head manufacturers is expected to usher in a comprehensive upgrade in terms of display, interaction, tracking and positioning next year. It is expected that in 2022, participants in metacosmos infrastructure construction, mainly by operators, underlying hardware companies and Internet companies, will take the lead in launching forces, and the pace of relevant product research and development, operating platform innovation and content upgrading will be accelerated.

Zeng Bokai told reporters that "there are many industries in the multi-vertical field of the Internet of things that are expected to take advantage of the metacosmos boom to accelerate the development of related technologies." Ericsson's time-critical communications and Nvidia's Omniverse are expected to become the underlying technologies of meta-universe, while perceptual layer vision, acoustics, environment and other information collection, platform layer AI accurate analysis of computing power, VR/AR and other man-machine interfaces, prediction will also benefit from the meta-universe vision and become an accelerated development field of the Internet of things.

Qualcomm officials said that in order to achieve meta-universe, related technologies need to evolve, such as 5G (the cornerstone of moving into a true IoE world), computational photography and computer vision (enabling depth perception, hand / eyeball / posture tracking), AI (3D reconstruction, perceptual algorithms, situational language understanding / audio enhancement and creation, etc.), graphics and display technology (rendering the world from 2D to 3D), immersive sound effects, etc. These technologies need to be combined with sensors, tactile technology, customized displays, lifelike avatars, sensing technology and batteries in small devices such as glasses.

The reporter combed and found that the current science and technology giants are making every effort to lay out meta-universe, based on their own advantages and business to find a starting point. For example, in terms of chips, Qualcomm layout XR technology has been developed for more than a decade, and more than 50 XR devices based on Snapdragon platform have been on the market, including Meta and Microsoft terminals. Raja Koduri, senior vice president and general manager of accelerated computing systems and graphics at Intel, also said that driven by Moore's Law, Metasverse will allow people to work, play, collaborate and socialize in an information-rich, real-time, globally connected world of VR and AR.

Liu Deyin, chairman of TSMC, said that the future meta-universe will have a significant impact on semiconductors, AR will replace current mobile phones, and VR to replace PC, meta-universe will be the biggest business in the semiconductor field in the next six months. Jeffery, an American investment bank, has said that investors should consider investing in meta-universe as they did in the early days of the Internet. This means that investors should focus first on hardware vendors, then software vendors, and then companies operating within the technology.

Some industry insiders have pointed out that after metacosmos enters the "infrastructure era", the chip industry is expected to be the first to benefit. Throughout the A-share market, chip listed companies have made relevant layouts, but most manufacturers told reporters that in order to avoid hot spots and speculation, it is inconvenient to accept interviews on meta-universe-related topics.

(according to incomplete statistics by reporters of the Financial Associated Press)

Liu Yang, stock fund manager of Chuangjin Hexin chip industry, believes that there are not many chip companies that directly benefit A shares in the short term, but from a long-term perspective, there may be a hundred times the total demand for terminal chips (especially computing chips, display chips, and sensor chips) for meta-universe. Another long-term follower of the semiconductor industry told reporters, "in essence, the chip is driving the development of meta-universe, but at present, the nature of the concept of meta-universe is greater than the essence, and 2022 may not bring any change to the chip industry."

As he Baohong, director of the Cloud Computing and big data Research Institute of the China Academy of Information and Communications, recently said publicly, "in the course of more than 20 years of Internet research, we have experienced generation after generation of 'next generation Internet', with some successes and failures. Meta-universe is only one of the processes, and it will not be the end of the Internet. The realization of meta-universe depends not only on ideas, but also on clear technology to achieve a point in time. The latest IDC research report also points out that due to the current technological background, creative level, and policy requirements, the related trends of the metamosmos in 2022 will be moderately advanced.