Extended reality

Extended reality (XR) is an umbrella term to refer to augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and mixed reality (MR). The technology is intended to combine or mirror the physical world with a "digital twin world" able to interact with it,^[1][2] giving users an immersive experience by being in a virtual or augmented environment.

The fields of virtual reality and augmented reality are rapidly growing and being applied in a wide range of areas such as entertainment, cinema, marketing, real estate, training, education, maintenance^[3] and remote work.^[4] Extended reality has the ability to be used for joint effort in the workplace, training, educational purposes, therapeutic treatments, and data exploration and analysis.

Extended reality works by using visual data acquisition that is either accessed locally or shared and transfers over a network and to the human senses. By enabling real-time responses in a virtual stimulus these devices create customized experiences. Advancing in 5G and edge computing – a type of computing that is done "at or near the source of data" – could aid in data rates, increase user capacity, and reduce latency. These applications will likely expand extended reality into the future.

Around one-third of the global extended reality market is attributed to Europe.