Virtual reality was identified as a growth area in China's latest five-year development plan. That's good news for VR firms such as Jaunt China, the company said Monday.
"That's a very interesting thing to put in their government documentation. You don't see the United States doing that, or other countries. China has this amazing vision where [artificial intelligence], electric cars, VR and [augmented reality] are part of their development road map," James Fong, Jaunt China's CEO, said at the Morgan Stanley China Technology, Media and Telecomm Conference in Beijing.
The company is a joint-venture between U.S.-based Jaunt, Shanghai Media Group and China Media Capital. The firm is a provider of VR content, hardware, software and applications. Its first film project, "The Deserted," was shortlisted at last year's Venice International Film Festival's VR competition.
Jaunt China, Fong said, wants to bring more content created in the world's second-largest economy to the global stage. He added that the company is working with schools in China to train students on the craft of VR film-making.
"I think good content is universal, it doesn't matter what country it is, people recognize good stories so one of the things we're trying to do is to develop the ability to create good VR narrative and the VR interactive-ness," said Fong.