AWE Asia 2024 brought together Asia’s top XR experts, investors, developers, media, and companies. This year, we were thrilled to welcome a global community of 1,000+ attendees, speakers, and exhibitors across 34 countries & regions. The conference, held at Singapore Expo, serves as a wonderful example of how the Asia Pacific (APAC) region is at the forefront of spatial computing and innovation, while creating space for XR professionals and brands to learn, connect, and grow together.
Read on for highlights from the Expo Hall, panel discussions, keynote speeches from global leaders, Auggie Award-winners, and more!
Auggie Awards: Award-Winning XR Developments
An audience favourite, the AWE Asia Auggie Awards celebrated the best in AR and VR on display. Niantic won Best in Show, AR for their Scaniverse 4 app, Tokyo Dome won Best in Show, VR, and The Awesome Award was given to XPANCEO, for their innovations being so ahead of our time. Congratulations to all of our Auggie Award winners for their hard work and creativity!
XR Innovations Unveiled at AWE Asia
During AWE Asia 2024, NTT DOCOMO and NTT Communications jointly unveiled their successful test of a groundbreaking multi-platform cloud-rendering technology. This new innovation allows tablets and smartphones to seamlessly access real-time 3D video in various environments, powered by edge-computing solutions like DOCOMO MEC and on-premises edge servers provided by NTT Com.
Additionally, Auggie Award winner, Niantic, released the Scaniverse 4 app, which allows users to capture places and objects in 3D through a Gaussian splatting technique, and captures more data points about an object for accurate and rich representation with faster rendering.
Conference Session Highlights
We had an impressive lineup of speakers across three content stages. Ori Inbar, David Weeks, and Ryan Hu from the AWE team kicked off day one of the conference with the opening plenary. Meta’s Head of APAC B2B Partnerships, Mark Jeffery, then began by sharing his insights on ‘The Future of Mixed Reality and Workplace Connection’.
Our second keynote, “Spatial Computing Needs a New Map,” involved Brian McClendon, Senior VP at Niantic, who discussed how the company is pioneering a 3rd generation map designed for immersive mixed reality experiences. His talk explored breakthroughs in computer vision, 3D scanning, and content creation, which are poised to redefine how digital maps function on mobile devices and mixed-reality headsets.
Our second day kicked off with two commendable keynote sessions. The first featured Alvin Wang Graylin, Global VP of HTC, who is a recognized technology pioneer, entrepreneur, executive, and thought leader with 30+ years of experience delivering innovative products in the AI, XR and semiconductor industries. His session broke down the future of XR and AI, providing a key roadmap of where the industry is headed.
Dr. Mark Billinghurst continued the momentum with his talk on the evolution of cross-reality interfaces, tracing their journey from early experimental systems to the present-day mainstream adoption enabled by advanced AR/VR displays like the Apple Vision Pro. His presentation delved into the current state of cross-reality, highlighted emerging research opportunities, and identified key challenges in making these experiences widely accessible.
Another noteworthy session involved General Partner of The Venture Reality Fund, Tipatat Chennavasin, who shared his expansive knowledge of how to succeed in XR from an investor’s perspective. His company has backed some of the most successful XR startups both in consumer and enterprise including the makers of Beat Saber who have made over $350M as well as enterprise SaaS startups making over $10M ARR.
A Spotlight on Exhibiting Sponsors
Thank you to all of our exhibitors, including platinum sponsor Meta, gold sponsors Niantic and Tokyo Dome, and silver sponsors Snap, and XPANCEO. We would also like to extend thanks to our bronze sponsors Lenovo, AWS, Immersal, Serl.io, and Shanghai Kunyao. Without the work of our sponsors and exhibitors, we would not have had such a successful event.
A huge thank you to our partners and volunteers!
Another special mention goes out to our partners, volunteers and emcees, whose contribution was essential. Thanks Dr. Loretta Chen, Dr. James Ong, Isobel Fraser, Irene Nemenzo, Annie Bai, and Stacy Shimunuki for hosting!
For those of you who were not able to attend, you may access the AWE Asia 2024 photo library and AWE Youtube channel for session recaps and event highlights.
Register for our upcoming global AWE events
Coming together at events like AWE Asia reminds us of how far we’ve come as an industry. It calls attention to the crucial conversations and standards needed to support a robust innovation ecosystem, and illustrates how important international cooperation and sharing of ideas are to the future of spatial computing.
Mark your calendars! We’ll be back in Singapore on August 24–26 for AWE Asia 2025. Our other upcoming global events include AWE EU, in Vienna, Austria, on October 29–30, 2024 and AWE USA will take over scenic Long Beach, CA from June 10–12, 2025.
