The Metaverse Overcoming Communication Barriers: Toyota City's Digital Vision for Solving Local Issues

──First, can you tell us what prompted the formulation of the 'Toyota City Metaverse Future Vision'?

Nakamura Daiki (hereafter, Nakamura): The idea of introducing the Metaverse in Toyota City began around October of Reiwa 3 (2021), partly spurred by the rising interest in the metaverse following the rebranding of Facebook to Meta in the United States. That same year, the spread of COVID-19 in Japan created a psychological distance across society, and Toyota City, having merged with six surrounding towns and villages (Asahi, Inabu, Shimoyama, Obara, Asuke, Fujikawa) in April of Heisei 17 (2005), became the largest municipality in Aichi Prefecture in terms of area, which also introduced physical distances between the city center and mountainous regions.

Toyota City faces various challenges such as social isolation due to aging and increasing numbers of students not attending school. Therefore, we began exploring the use of the Metaverse, an advanced technology, as a potential solution. Based on the vision we formulated, in December last year, we developed a virtual space 'Metaverse Toyota' that can be used by citizens, businesses, and the government for various purposes.