Meta announces Canada metaverse hub, new app teams

“We’re also establishing the first Canadian WhatsApp, Messenger and Remote Presence engineering teams and growing our Canadian Reality Labs and AI Research teams.”

What you need to know

Meta this week announced that it is building a new Canadian engineering hub.
2,500 jobs in Toronto and beyond will focus on helping build the metaverse.
It is also establishing new teams for apps like WhatsApp and Messenger.

Meta this week announced it is expanding its operations in Canada with a new engineering hub focused on building the metaverse.

The company stated:

Over the next decade, we’re helping to build for the metaverse to drive a new generation of immersive online social experiences that have the potential to unlock access to creative, social and economic opportunities. Canadians are already building for this future and will play an important role in shaping it from the start.

Today, we’re announcing the creation of a new engineering hub in Canada based in Toronto, alongside increased hiring across Canada. This is expected to create up to 2,500 new jobs over the next several years, with recruiting already underway.

The company says that while the majority of the new roles are engineering-focused and aimed at reality experience and “Meta technologies”, it is also creating new engineering teams in the country for WhatsApp, Messenger, and Remote Presence.

The artist formerly known as Facebook is investing heavily in what it believes is the future of augmented and virtual reality, the metaverse. While Apple reportedly has its own Apple VR mixed reality headset in the works, executives have steered clear of using the term, suggesting that the future fight for the augmented and virtual reality markets may be defined by diverging strategies.

Meta also announced a further $510,000 in unrestricted grants to Canadian research labs.