Web 4.0

"The European Commission and the 2025 Polish Presidency of the Council of the EU are organising a Global Multistakeholder High Level Conference on the governance of Web 4.0 and Virtual Worlds, on 31 March and 1 April 2025", reads an announcement by the Commission. Below is a brief exploration of who uses the term Web 4.0 and in what context.

Defining Web 4.0

The conference follows the EU initiative on web 4.0 and virtual worlds from mid 2023. Herein, the EC defines Web 4.0 as "the expected fourth generation of the World Wide Web. Using advanced artificial and ambient intelligence, the internet of things, trusted blockchain transactions, virtual worlds and XR capabilities, digital and real objects and environments are fully integrated and communicate with each other, enabling truly intuitive, immersive experiences, seamlessly blending the physical and digital worlds".

It follows on Web 3.0, which has 2 definitions according to Wikipedia: one envisioning the web as a based on public blockchains, the other using the term "semantic web" to make all data on the web machine-readable. The Commission seems to combine these two notions in their definition of Web 3.0 in the same document: "Its main features are openness, decentralisation, and users’ full empowerment enabling them to control and realise the economic value of their data, manage their online identities and participate in governing the web. Semantic web capabilities allow linking data across webpages, applications and files. Decentralised technologies and digital twins enable peer-to-peer transactions, transparency, data democracy and innovation along entire value chains".

The envisioned benefits of Web 4.0

This EU Initiative dedicates one subsection to a broad array of "societal benefits", and one to "economic benefits". For the latter, they cite a paywalled metaverse market research report that projects the "global market of virtual worlds [...] to grow from €27bln in 2022 to >€800bln by 2030", and a paper by the VR/AR industrial coalition (yet authored by consultancy firm Ecorys) that estimates 860.000 new XR-related jobs in Europe by 2025. This coalition is "a platform for structured dialogue between the European VR/AR ecosystem and policymakers" with EU-based businesses and research organisations. Not all of these names are familiar, but the list includes research organisations as well as companies in the following domains: metaverse/AR/VR, telecom, manufacturing, high-tech, optics/lenses, entertainment and a theme park, consultancy, health, Ikea, semiconductor/chips, defense, and mobility/trucks.

Organisations involved

As for the initiative's history and legitimacy: it follows the Communication on the long-term competitiveness of the EU beyond 2030 that calls Web 4.0 "groundbreaking" but does not list references for this claim. The European Council also advocates to "foster the take-up of digital tools across the economy and increase support for businesses and administrations in the EU to stay at the forefront in [...] web 4.0". I did not go deeper to find out where these beliefs come from, but I suspect that this VR/AR industrial coalition played a role. The Coalition published multiple deliverables that informed the aforementioned EU initiative on web 4.0 and virtual worlds (see here), so possibly they played a role in these other forums, too.