Nokia and Tencent will make research into 5G-enabled internet-of-things (IoT) applications for industry verticals including transportation, energy and manufacturing a major part of their new collaboration in China, based out of a new test lab in Shenzhen.
The pair said at Mobile World Congress in Shanghai they will explore the potential of 5G, in combination with edge computing, for web-scale companies to provide new applications, including those for certain industries, also including the finance and entertainment sectors.
Their work will also inform 5G-based concepts like cellular vehicle-to-everything (C-V2X), and cloud-based gaming and entertainment.
Nokia and Tencent said they will leverage the artificial intelligence and automation management capabilities enabled by 5G to “promote international standards and an open-source ecosystem to expand the development of new services.”
Marc Rouanne, president of mobile networks at Nokia, said the arrangement will help show web-scale companies how they can leverage 5G. “We can deliver a network that will allow them to extend their service offer to deliver myriad applications and services with the high-reliability and availability to support ever-growing and changing customer demands.”
Tencent has 1.04 billion combined monthly active user accounts in China for its WeChat and QQ social media applications. Zeng Yu, vice president at Tencent, said: “Tencent and Nokia are fully committed to delivering richer, more diverse, multi-level services and applications for enterprises, and individual customers.”
The Shenzhen lab will be equipped with 5G technologies including both centralised and decentralised split architecture using Nokia’s Airscale radio access network, 5G core, edge computing framework and third party devices.
