Avengers VFX maker Digital Domain wants its virtual humans to be ‘foundation of the metaverse’

Hong Kong-listed Digital Domain, known for its hologram of singer Teresa Teng, is betting on virtual humans helping it gain a foothold in the metaverse

The company has worked on some of Hollywood’s biggest hits, including Spider-Man: No Way Home, but has suffered widening losses during the pandemic

Reading Time:4 minutes

Visual effects giant Digital Domain, a Hong Kong-listed company behind the hologram version of late singer Teresa Teng, is betting on its “virtual human” technology to help it in the race to develop the metaverse. Photo: Digital Domain

Published: 11:00am, 9 Feb 2022Updated: 5:07pm, 9 Feb 2022

Visual effects giant Digital Domain, a Hong Kong-listed company behind the hologram version of late singer Teresa Teng, is betting that its ability to produce “virtual humans” will give it a foothold in a metaverse future.

The company, which has worked on visual effects for multiple blockbuster Marvel Studios films, is hoping that as people’s lives become increasingly digital, they will “eventually need to have someone represent them in the virtual world”, CEO Daniel Seah said in an interview with the South China Morning Post.

The company has previously presented its ability to create virtual humans as an asset in emerging technologies such as virtual reality. The CEO now says Digital Domain aims to be the “foundation of the metaverse” by creating digital avatars for end consumers.

Digital Domain CEO Daniel Seah speaks at a conference in Beijing on July 19, 2016. Photo: Simon Song

The metaverse is a conceptual term referring to an immersive virtual world where digital representations of people interact with each other in computer-generated environments, which some imagine as a future iteration of the internet. The idea gained traction last year as people spent more time online during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Major tech companies have rushed to jump on the bandwagon. Social media giant Facebook rebranded itself as Meta last October, and Microsoft announced in January its acquisition of Activision Blizzard for US$68.7 billion in cash, the largest video game deal of all time. Microsoft said the buyout would “provide building blocks for the metaverse”.

In mainland China, Big Tech and start-ups alike have also embraced the concept, and local governments announced plans to support metaverse development. However, authorities have cautioned against metaverse hype. Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily referred to the trend as a market frenzy, and a state-run think tank said the metaverse will have implications for “political security”.

Digital Domain started working on its virtual Teresa Teng in 2012, according to Seah. The computer-generated 3D avatar of the iconic Taiwanese singer, who died at the age of 42 in 1995, has been used in multiple live stage performances over the years and to answer questions in interactions with fans.