Metaverse is in talks with AR startup Magic Leap for a long-term partnership

**Source: **Financial Association

Edit Zhou Ziyi

Facebook parent company Meta is in talks with augmented reality (AR) startup Magic Leap to incorporate the company's technology into Meta's "metaverse" concept, according to people familiar with the matter.

According to media reports on Sunday (May 21), Meta is exploring a possible multi-year agreement with Magic Leap. Under this agreement, Meta will provide Magic Leap with intellectual property licenses in North America and provide it with contract manufacturing methods .

The partnership aims to leverage Magic Leap's expertise in producing custom components, including advanced lenses and associated software, key technologies Meta needs to build its Metaverse.

For a long time, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been obsessively pursuing the concept of "Metaverse", spending tens of billions of dollars to create a virtual world.

The "Metaverse" is an immersive online world filled with avatars where people can interact, work and play. Its philosophy transcends the boundaries of the physical world, enabling users to participate in a variety of digital experiences and social interactions.

Peer Pressure

Founded in 2010, Magic Leap gained favor with many tech giants during the previous Metaverse boom.

In 2018, the company released its first headset, but it failed to appeal to the consumer market. Subsequently, Magic Leap made a strategic change, gradually shifting its focus to enterprise customers.

According to former Magic Leap employees, the company's "biggest asset" is its advanced waveguide technology, which allows thin glass to produce immersive AR images with a sense of depth.

The company launches Magic Leap 2 in September 2022, the successor to that product from 2018. It offers a range of features, such as enhanced visual capabilities, improved comfort, and integration with enterprise applications, positioning it as a tool for professional use in design, healthcare, and training.

Talks between the two sides are still in their early stages, and the partnership is not expected to lead to joint development of the Meta-Magic Leap headset, the people said. Perhaps a more accurate statement about the negotiations is that Meta is interested in leveraging Magic Leap's capabilities to enhance its mainstream AR offerings.

The discussions between Meta and Magic Leap come as Apple is expected to unveil a major product, a mixed reality (MR) headset, at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) next month.

Apple's product has been long awaited by the outside world, but it also brings more threats to technology companies such as Meta. These companies are now seeing AR/VR headsets as the next big computing platform.