iMetaverseKG: Industrial Metaverse Knowledge Graph to Promote Interoperability in Design and Engineering Applications

The term metaverse was coined by author Neal Stephenson in 1992 in his science fiction novel “Snow Crash.”1 Metaverse is a conjunction of the Greek prefix “meta,” which means beyond, and the stem “verse,” which implies universe, hence the meaning “beyond the universe.” It is a futuristic, hyperrealistic virtual world where humans will spend time performing their day-to-day activities, such as entertaining, socializing, playing, working, and shopping. This requires that a metaverse offers a real-time virtual representation of the physical world with its entities, relationships, events, states, processes, and activities. According to the Gartner forecast report, the metaverse is among the top five emerging trends and technologies. Gartner predicts that by 2026 25% of people will spend at least one hour every day in the metaverse and 30% of organizations will have products and services developed for metaverse platforms.2 The metaverse is in an early developmental stage but has a considerable promise of occupying prominent space in the next phase of the Internet.