In recent years, the maturation of emerging technologies such as Virtual Reality, Digital twins, and Blockchain has accelerated the realization of the metaverse. As a virtual world independent of the real world, the metaverse will provide users with a variety of virtual activities that bring great convenience to society. In addition, the metaverse can facilitate digital twins, which offers transformative possibilities for the industry. Thus, the metaverse has attracted the attention of the industry, and a huge amount of capital is about to be invested. However, the development of the metaverse is still in its infancy and little research has been undertaken so far. We describe the development of the metaverse. Next, we introduce the architecture of the socially beneficial metaverse (SB-Metaverse) and we focus on the technologies that support the operation of SB-Metaverse. In addition, we also present the applications of SB-Metaverse. Finally, we discuss several challenges faced by SB-Metaverse which must be addressed in the future.

翻译：近年来，虚拟现实、数字孪生和区块链等新兴技术的成熟加速了元宇宙的实现。作为一个独立于现实世界的虚拟空间，元宇宙将为用户提供多样化的虚拟活动，为社会带来极大便利。此外，元宇宙能够促进数字孪生的发展，为工业领域带来变革性可能。因此，元宇宙已引起业界关注，大量资本即将涌入。然而，元宇宙的发展仍处于起步阶段，迄今相关研究较为有限。本文首先阐述元宇宙的发展历程。其次，介绍面向社会的有益元宇宙（SB-Metaverse）架构，并重点讨论支撑其运行的关键技术。此外，还展示了SB-Metaverse的应用场景。最后，探讨了SB-Metaverse未来必须解决的若干挑战。