Huawei joins European 5G research project

Huawei has signed up to become a key contributor to a number of major research projects as part of the first phase of the European 5G Public Private Partnership (5G-PPP), a joint plan between the European Union (EU) and the industry to advance 5G research and co-operation in Europe.

5G-PPP, which will be funded by €700m from the EU and €3.5bn from the industry, aims to achieve a communications infrastructure capable of dealing with the demands of future wireless technologies by the end of the decade.

This includes providing 1,000 times more wireless area capacity than is currently available, saving up to 90% of energy per service provided, and creating a secure, reliable and dependable internet with no perceived downtime.

It is currently working on 19 projects, and Huawei – as a board member of the 5G Infrastructure Association – plans to contribute both expertise and other resources to some of the most future-oriented projects.

“5G is the standard that will take us into the era of ‘smart everything’. This will create vast business opportunities while enhancing quality of life on a number of levels. 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,” said Huawei Wireless chief technology officer Wen Tong.

It will be working on five projects:

• Metis-II: Mobile and wireless communications enablers for twenty-twenty (2020) information society.
• Fantastic5G: Flexible air interface for scalable service delivery within wireless 5G communications networks.
• mmMagic: Millimetre wave-based mobile radio access networks for 5G integrated communications.
• 5G-Xhaul: Dynamic reconfigurable optical-wireless backhaul/fronthaul with cognitive control plane for small cells and cloud-RANs.
• 5Gex: 5G Exchange, multi-domain orchestration for software-defined infrastructures.

Additionally, Huawei will continue to focus on its existing 5G research ventures in Europe, including its ongoing programme at the University of Surrey, where it is investing £5m in research and a network testbed.

It also recently launched a 5G Vertical Industry Accelerator (5G VIA) in Munich targeting a large-scale 5G testbed to simulate real-world scenarios for vertical industries.