Dubai Crown Prince Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum seems to share Meta’s vision for the next generation of the internet because he has recently launched the Dubai Metaverse Strategy.

The aim of the initiative is to make Dubai the leader in the region and one of the top 10 cities globally in terms of metaverse economy by supporting 40,000 virtual jobs and 5x the number of blockchain and metaverse companies. By achieving these ambitious goals, Dubai could add $4 billion to its economy within the next 5 years.

“His Highness added that adopting new technologies will be a stepping stone in Dubai’s vision to use future technologies to create new work models in vital sectors and increase the metaverse’s impact on regional and global economies,” states an announcement published by the UAE official news agency WAM.

The Dubai Metaverse Strategy consists of three pillars. The first pillar is intended to foster metaverse innovation and economic contribution. The purpose of the second pillar is to cultivate metaverse talent through education and training. Finally, the third pillar is all about developing metaverse use-cases and applications at the government level.

The three pillars are supported by the adoption, scaling, and global advocation of safe platforms, in addition to infrastructure and regulation refinement.

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While certainly one of the most bullish proponents of the metaverse, Dubai isn’t the first city to introduce a cohesive strategy. Just last month, Chinese city Shanghai released a policy paper that outlines its strategy to cultivate a metaverse industry worth more than 350 billion yuan ($52 billion) by the end of 2025.

Globally, the metaverse market is projected to be worth around $1,607.12 billion by the end of the decade, according to Precedence Research. Do you think Dubai will see a return on this massive investment?