Over 223.7 billion won ($177.1 million) would be invested directly by the government in different Metaverse initiatives

South Korea's commitment to investing in emerging Metaverse technology makes it one of the first national governments to do so. The investment was made as part of the

Digital New Deal initiative

designed to finance developing technology.

The program is led by the Ministry of Science and Information and Communication Technology of South Korea, under the direction of Lim Hyesook, who described the metaverse as

an uncharted digital continent with limitless potential,

indicating the government's desire to take the lead in the Metaverse technology.

CNBC claimed that the federal money would first be used to construct a metropolitan level metaverse platform that would enable individuals to access different government programmesprogramsces digitally. The first news of the South Korean government's growing interest in the Metaverse surfaced in February when two big stores integrated the Metaverse and artificial intelligence into their platforms to improve the consumer experience. The investment of the South Korean government in Metaverse initiatives might inspire other governments to do the same.

South Korea has taken strong measures to promote emerging blockchain technology a technologically developed country. It was one of the first governments to implement blockchain use cases for government agencies, setting the standard for other nations to follow.

Metaverse is a virtual reality environment in which a nonfungible token (NFT) functions as a commodity (a piece of land, cloth, avatar, etc.). After non-fungible tokens, this notion has garnered the most excitement in the crypto community despite its youth. All big mainstream technology companies, including Facebook, Google, and even Apple, have shown considerable interest in the notion. Facebook even changed its whole brand name to Meta.

The Metaverse was one of the primary topics of discussion at the recently concluded World Economic Forum (WEF) 2022, where experts predicted that it would be helpful in a variety of fields, particularly medical and rescue operations, where it is sometimes impossible for humans to perform tasks in person and a virtual reality system can be of great assistance.