Industry group GSMA has launched new initiative to focus on the development of cloud virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) technology. The programme, called the GSMA Cloud AR/VR Forum, was unveiled at Huawei’s 9th Global Mobile Broadband Forum in London and is backed by mobile operators including China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom, Deutsche Telekom, KDDI, KT, NTT Docomo, SK Telecom, Telefonica, Telenor, TIM, Turkcell and Vodafone, as well as other industry partners including Huawei and HTC.
The forum will encourage all parties to collaborate on accelerating the delivery and deployment of 5G cloud-based AR/VR services via knowledge sharing as well as discussion about new business models including the development of a service reference architecture to avoid cost fragmentation. It will also focus on technical development areas including research into ultra-low latency codec compression, graphics processing unit (GPU) rendering in the cloud and virtualisation technologies, as well as the development of simplified interfaces so that developers can easily deploy services.
In its statement, the GSMA pointed out that cloud AR/VR technology requires a very fast, low latency bandwidth data connection in order to deliver an ultra-high resolution 4K or 8K viewing experience. 5G will be able to deliver this via its new network capabilities as well as a more reliable experience through edge cloud, said the industry body.
