The digital human industry is in the ascendant and is rapidly entering the massive digital transformation scenarios of our digital life, digital operations and digital governance. From the explosion of the metaverse to the emergence of AIGC, the "vitality" of the digital human market has become increasingly strong, moving from conceptualization to the stage of substantial development and implementation, forming large-scale applications in various fields.
It is reported that in the past two years, China Unicom has taken the lead in the development and commercial application of digital human technology. Last year, it officially launched a digital human product matrix and full-stack digital human technology such as personal digital human, fully real digital human, and professional virtual digital human.
Recently, five communications industry experts and scholars walked into the China Unicom Digital Human Production Center to experience the production process of true digital human beings, becoming the first group of communications industry digital humans to appear together.
Full real digital human first experience
Full real digital human, also known as 2D digital human, collects and reproduces the expressions, mouth shapes, body movements, and sounds of real people, and uses AI technology to achieve image sound drive and multi-modal interaction algorithm models Training to achieve intelligent generation and perceptual interaction of 2D digital humans. On the day of
, the real digital human collection process was carried out in two steps. Five experts first cooperated with the video shooting in front of the green screen to collect the image, and then cooperated with the recording to collect the sound.
"It is indeed novel and even a little strange to come into contact with digital human photography for the first time," Lu Tingjie, a professor at Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, told the "Communications Industry News" all-media reporter. As the recording process progresses, he is amazed at the changes brought about by technology and has thoughts about the future. The possibilities of life create more expectations.
"This is the first time I have personally come into contact with the generation process of a digital person." Xin Pengjun, the all-media editor-in-chief of "Communications Industry News" said that when you evolve from a physical person to a digital person, you need a computer to collect enough information about you. Including movements, expressions, sounds, mouth shapes, eyes, etc. It's like the computer getting to know you. "Of course, this is only the first step."
By shooting videos and recording voices of people, China Unicom's neural network-based text-to-speech (tts) synthesis system converts the Mel spectrogram into time-domain waveform samples to realize speech Re-engraving; Based on the adversarial neural network (gan), the more advanced optical flow estimation method is integrated to train the collected image, and the details of the facial features, voice and mouth synchronization are enhanced to achieve image re-enactment. Finally, the data of text, pictures, and videos are extracted through visual token extractor and multi-modal action representation, and the video is combined through the multi-modal interaction model. Pang Ce, general manager of strategic cooperation in Greater China at
gsma, said that the scope of digital human applications continues to expand, empowering various application fields. There are two main development directions in terms of virtual humans focusing on personality expression. The first is to move from virtuality to reality, establishing original virtual images and applying them to the physical world. For example, as a virtual anchor, brand spokesperson, trend experience officer, etc., you can shoot advertisements, cloud check-in exhibitions, release brand promotions and other activities. The second is to move from reality to virtuality and build digital twin virtual people based on individuals who actually exist in the physical world. The digital human being invited by China Unicom to participate in the production this time is a digital twin virtual human. The entire recording process takes about 40 minutes, including video, movement, sound collection, etc. The application scenarios of real-person digital twins have become more and more abundant. At the same time, combined with artificial intelligence technology, they can exert greater commercial value.
Knocking on the door of the metaverse
As digital human theory and technology become increasingly mature, operators continue to explore the application scope and scenarios of digital human technology. In July 2023, China Unicom Online took the lead in releasing the "Unicom Quanzhen Digital Human Product Matrix", including Personal Digital Human, Quanzhen Digital Human Anchor, Quanzhen Digital Human Live Broadcast, Quanzhen Digital Human Customer Service, and Professional Customized Digital Human for news and variety shows. , sports, finance, weather and other TV programs research virtual image synthesis technology to efficiently help enterprises complete digital human model broadcast content, create exclusive IP images for enterprises, and build a new development pattern of the digital human industry chain.
5g Zhang Zexuan, secretary-general of the China Innovation 100 and deputy director of the Application Innovation Committee of the Internet Society of China, said that as the growth of traditional communication services slows down, the digital human industry, as an emerging business model, provides operators with new sources of income and growth point. Digital humans can be used in customer service, entertainment, education, health and other fields, bringing new business opportunities to operators. The development of the digital human industry by operators can not only bring commercial benefits to them, but also promote technological progress, improve service quality, promote social development, and enhance competitiveness on a global scale.
"How to build and operate innovative services that everyone can access, use and have a sense of gain is an industry problem that Yuanverse urgently needs to break through. China Unicom is undoubtedly pioneering in this aspect." Ge Qi, deputy secretary-general of the Artificial Intelligence Special Committee of the China Association of Communications Enterprises and founder and chief architect of gtverse in the Gongti Yuanverse, said that digital people are responsible for individual consumers’ digital identity authentication management, digital social credentials and digital asset platform in the Yuanverse. With multiple attributes, it is an important starting point for enterprises and government customers to provide 2C services, create digital assets and increase digital income in the Yuanverse. It has received great attention from the industry, capital parties and users. From a global perspective, iteration speed is the fastest It has the most rapid and micro innovations and is the most frequently used cloud universe application. "Digital people will take the lead in helping individual consumers, enterprises, and government users to open the door to the metaverse."
"Previously, the digital people launched by operators have been used in sports, entertainment, and leadership speeches. This time it is for the communications industry The launch of the first batch of digital humans is very commendable." Lu Tingjie said that digital humans can not only be used in entertainment, games, film and television industries, but can also be used as online courses, virtual anchors, speeches and other application scenarios, providing us with new ways of interaction. and service experience. We are very much looking forward to the widespread application of China Unicom Digital People in the future.
is the home incubator for digital people.
Usually digital people have high requirements for core functions such as computing power, intelligence, transportation capacity, rendering, delay and artistic growth. A completely privatized network platform has high cost, poor security, and cannot support universal smart terminals. The China Unicom Digital Human applet in China Unicom's Digital Human product only needs to upload or record a 2-3 minute video of the person, collect oral movements and skin status, and then generate an exclusive digital avatar in the background to restore the true appearance of the real person.
Ge Qi said that digital human UI/UX is created through low-threshold digital skills such as shooting videos and recording voices. Cloud large models and standardized interfaces are deeply connected with operators' 5G computing network and AI capabilities, integrating personal digital assets with digital identities. Management, real-time rendering optimization, and dof and other privacy data related to personal privacy and geographical location are carried by multi-form intelligent terminals such as smartphones. The new holographic digital human solution created by China Unicom has a system that is convenient for consumer experience and easy to realize business closed loop. Super advantage capabilities can support almost all smartphone users to use their own terminals to experience new businesses, new services and new experiences in the digital human metaverse.
Xin Pengjun believes that China Unicom is the first operator to promote digital people and the metaverse, and is the pioneer and leader in promoting digital people. China Unicom Online has been exploring and practicing in the metaverse and digital human fields for a long time, and has accumulated a wealth of applications. In particular, China Unicom has accumulated rich experience in new business derivatives based on massive ring tones, videos, 5G new calls, etc., AI video processing, computing power model construction, computing power matching and scheduling, etc. "Embracing openness" is China Unicom's greatest advantage. The core of the generation path of all new businesses, new technologies, and new applications is openness.
It is reported that in order to promote digital human technology more widely and enhance people’s digital human experience, China Unicom will launch 100 “Digital Human ‘Green Screen Room’ Experience Halls” in China Unicom’s 10 provincial business offices in March 2024. The user goes to the "green screen room" of the digital human, maintains a standing/sitting posture, records a 2-3 minute manuscript reading video according to the inscription, and then waits for the digital human image to be generated. Further deepen users’ understanding and experience of digital humans.In 2024, China Unicom will help 100 million people have their own digital people.
Pangze said that currently, the world's leading telecom operators are innovating, exploring and practicing in multiple non-traditional telecom business areas, such as cloud business, AIGC business, Yuanshi business, etc. Telecom operators have abundant computing infrastructure resources, professional technical teams, and extensive c-side and b-side customer resources. For digital human services, it is worth exploring and trying by operators. (Cui Liangliang)
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