The fifth World Internet Conference opened in Wuzhen, Zhejiang province on Nov 7. Pony Ma, chairman, and CEO of Tencent gave a speech at the opening ceremony, in which he said that the development of a VR-enabled version for WeChat was to be seriously co
The fifth World Internet Conference opened in Wuzhen, Zhejiang province on Nov 7.
Pony Ma, chairman, and CEO of Tencent gave a speech at the opening ceremony, in which he said that the development of a VR-enabled version for WeChat was to be seriously considered.
And despite social media’s reports of Tencent planning to launch the VR version sometime next year, this was never confirmed.
Tencent’s PR Director even posted on his social media account to clarify these widely unfounded speculations.
What Pony Ma said in the speech is:
“Everyone is looking ahead to the 5G era.
For our Internet companies which provide such services, we feel very excited.
Last night, we learned from Yang Jie, chairman of China Telecom, that their trial network in Wuzhen has achieved a download rate of 1.7g per second.
In the future, we will see more VR-enhanced mobile devices at the world Internet conference in Wuzhen.
So, with that in mind, I am seriously considering developing a VR-enabled version for WeChat.”
In his speech, Pony Ma talked about the opportunities, challenges, and responsibilities of digital development.
In terms of opportunities, Ma reminded us that China has 800 million Internet users and that 98% of them use mobile Internet. In the future, Tencent hopes to take root in the consumer Internet business and embrace the industrial Internet to become a digital center of all industries.
As for new challenges, Ma said that in the process of reshaping the real world by digitalization, the digital economy and the real economy are deeply integrated, and that cloud computing, big data and artificial intelligence are beginning to become the new infrastructure of the entire economic society.
Pony Ma believes that the government, Internet enterprises, civic organizations, and individual users should all play their roles to fully assume responsibility together. The Internet has now developed into a deep-water zone, or even a no-man’s land, where many new problems arise and responsibility boundaries are often vague. For every participant, especially the platform Internet enterprises, it may be more necessary to stand up for the attitude of ownership.
