Europe is ratcheting up its focus on 5G with the launch of the first phase of the continent’s 3.5 billion Euro ($3.9 billion) Public Private Partnership program.
Chinese devicemaker Huawei will play a key role in the project aimed at strengthening Europe’s 5G research and global cooperation to achieve network infrastructure capable of 1,000 times higher wireless area capacity, as well as a secure, reliable, zero-latency Internet connection by 2020.
The almost 3.5 billion Euros will come from private investment and will be boosted by a 700 million Euro ($7.7 million) investment from the European Union. The EU believes the research could lead to new smart city, e-health, intelligent transport, education, and entertainment and media markets.
Huawei is a board member of the 5G Infrastructure Association, contributing its resources to some of the more forward-thinking projects under the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme.
“Building fruitful alliances will be key to bringing us closer to transforming our vision of 5G into a global standard. Europe has huge potential for boosting 5G development by federating efforts, and the 5G-PPP is a good illustration of this approach,” Dr. Wen Tong, Huawei Wireless CTO said.
Huawei will be a leading contributor to four of the five key 5G areas. These areas include mobile and wireless communications enablers, flexible air interface for scalable service delivery, millimetre-wave-based mobile radio access networks, dynamic reconfigurable optical-wireless backhaul/fronthaul with cognitive control plane for small cells and cloud-RANs, and exchange multidomain orchestration for software-defined infrastructures.
The world’s third-largest handsetmaker is also conducting 5G research with the University of Surrey’s 5G Innovation Centre in the U.K. and launched the 5G Vertical Industry Accelerator in Munich. The company plans to invest GBP 5 million ($7.8 million) in 5G research and a testbed in the U.K. by 2018.
“Huawei is investing a tremendous research effort into this key enabling technology,” Dr. Tong said. “Our collaboration with European industry and research partners is at the very heart of this commitment: We are working with European partners, including verticals, at the cutting-edge of global 5G development.”
Huawei currently has over 9,900 employees based in Europe.
