News

Everdome Announces First-Ever Metaverse Soundtrack

The interplanetary metaverse project has revealed the opening single from the world’s first metaverse-specific soundtrack.

Published

4 years ago

October 21, 2022

Nour Nasir

Everdome

Created in tandem with music composer Wojciech Urbański, a single called “Machine Phoenix” is being released today which forms part of the first-ever metaverse-specific soundtrack.

The project is called the “Everdome Original Metaverse Soundtrack”. It will give a unique atmosphere and background ambiance to Everdome’s hyper-realistic landscape, which is based on a future Mars settlement, using blockchain and VR technology.

Wojciech Urbański is a gifted composer with a portfolio of award-winning tracks that have been used by the likes of Netflix and Canal+. Wojciech’s Spotify community currently comprises over 600,000 monthly listeners, while overall, his tracks have been played more than 50 million times. The Everdome project hopes to use the composer’s talents to add drama to its hyper-realistic storytelling and visuals.

“Creating a musical illustration of the cosmos and space exploration is probably a dream held by every composer. This collaboration is for me a great artistic opportunity, as the setting of an immersive metaverse world permits the use of a very wide range of sounds and tools,” says Wojciech Urbański.

Metaverse users will hear Wojciech’s work as they launch from Everdome’s virtual Hatta spaceport to the Mars Cycler, situated in Earth’s lower orbit, with the musical collaboration evoking a similar atmosphere to Harry Gregson-Williams’ soundtrack for “The Martian” or Hans Zimmer’s “Dune”.

Also Read: Bedu Has Built A Metaverse Of The UAE’s Planned Mars Trip

As well as partnering with Wojciech Urbański, Everdome is also utilizing the talents of Michał Fojcik, a sound supervisor and designer who has worked on blockbusters including X-Men: Dark Phoenix and Solo. A Star Wars Story.

“Building a sonic background for a metaverse experience is a uniquely challenging task. In the absence of true forms of touch or smell, the visual and the sonic take on huge levels of importance if the experience is to be considered truly hyper-realistic,” says Michał Fojcik, sound supervisor and advisor.

Both artists will be dedicated to the creation of a sonic soundscape that will significantly enhance the quality of Everdome’s storytelling, and you can hear the first single from their collaboration, “Machine Phoenix”, on all major music distribution platforms, including Spotify, Anghami, and YouTube from today.

News

Microsoft Plans $10 Billion-Plus Gulf Expansion Despite Iran Conflict

Security is shaping Microsoft’s approach, from resilience work with governments to what it will say about how the money splits by country.

Published

4 days ago

September 24, 2026

Nour Nasir

Microsoft

Microsoft is planning more than $10 billion of investment across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait through 2030, Vice Chair and President Brad Smith told Reuters, calling the spending schedule aggressive. The Iranian conflict that began on February 28 has not persuaded the company to scale back.

“We’re sustaining all the investments we planned to make before this conflict started, and we are in fact adding to them,” Smith said. The $10 billion-plus total does not, however, show how large those additions are.

The investment, which Smith described as part of Microsoft’s continued infrastructure expansion, is aimed at cloud and AI infrastructure and at the company’s growing regional operations. Microsoft also intends to put more than $400 million into subsea and terrestrial connectivity across the Middle East by 2030.

The spending fits the region’s own ambitions too. Gulf governments have been investing heavily in AI infrastructure as part of a push to diversify their economies beyond oil and gas and turn themselves into global technology hubs. Major cloud and AI providers have been drawn in part by the land and relatively low-cost energy on offer.

Microsoft is widening its partnerships with regional AI companies, though not on identical terms. In 2024, it invested $1.5 billion in Abu Dhabi-based G42 for a minority stake, and Smith currently sits on G42’s board. Saudi Arabia’s Humain and Qatar’s Qai are working with Microsoft on selected priority areas, but Smith said the company does not plan to make capital investments in either.

Also Read: Egypt’s Mobile Wallets Are Booming, But Cash Still Has Power

The conflict has added another strand to Microsoft’s work in the region. Since it began, Smith said, the company has supported regional partners with digital resilience assessments, and it is now working with Gulf countries through a digital resilience initiative focused on preparedness and the protection of critical data.

So far, the company has given no country-by-country breakdown of the investment, citing security among other factors. So while the headline figure is public, how Microsoft divides the spending among the four countries is not.