A new IoT innovation centre in Finland has been rigged up with private 5G from Elisa and IoT devices from Qualcomm. The facility will be opened shortly by new Finnish tech firm UROS, alongside US chip maker Qualcomm, as a “next generation” IoT showroom and collaboration facility.
UROS is a partner of AT&T, China Telecom, Qualcomm, and Motorola. The new venue, in the city of Oulu, is the first in Finland to utilise private 5G in IoT product development and validation, according to its proprietor.
UROS will work with new and established IoT companies, as well as universities, at the new facility, with a brief to generate and monetise intellectual property related to IoT.
The site establishes a “quick-turn platform” for artificial intelligence, wearables, smart cities, robotics, drones, industrial IoT and automotive. The private 5G network affords highly reliable wireless connectivity, with low latency and wide capacity, and a “perfect conditions” for IoT development.
Rauno Jokelainen, chief technology officer at UROS, commented: “5G connectivity is a vital enabler for industry digitalisation with cellular IoT. Elisa has been an excellent partner for the deployment of the new private 5G network, [which is] well on schedule and with the desired performance. With this added premium functionality, we strive to offer the best-in-class innovation environment for the stakeholders in our IoT ecosystem.”
Eetu Prieur, director of mobile solutions at Elisa, said: “Elisa is very excited about this collaboration with UROS in the brand new field of 5G. We get very valuable experiences on the usage of 5G technologies also for private networks and massive IoT.”
The site will be inaugurated later in 2020. Elisa is continuing to build a national 5G network in Finland; it has so far launched in 17 cities in the country.
