The industrial metaverse, a sector that provides fully immersive, real-time, interactive and synchronous representations of production line services to industries, has the potential to significantly enhance efficiency and lower costs, according to an expert at the World Economic Forum's 14th Annual Meetings of the New Champions.

Ma Junjie, founder and CEO of Shanghai-based Digitwin Technologies, explained to CGTN that existing technologies like digital twins, artificial intelligence and machine learning, extended reality, blockchain, and cloud and edge computing have already become solid building blocks of the industrial metaverse.

"The challenge for this industry is ... more about data and model alignment and collaboration," Ma said.

As China moves towards digitizing its manufacturing sector, Ma attributed the country's policy guidance and practice as strong driving forces.

Ma's company is one of many that have leveraged these policies to conduct proof of concepts and develop real business models for broader applications in manufacturing production lines.

"China is the hub for global manufactures ... It's a big market for us," Ma said.

With a wide range of established customer profiles domestically, Ma's services are now attracting clients in Southeast Asia and the Middle East.