China’s industrial 5G ecosystem remains immature as companies struggle to find applications
- 5G has been billed as an enabling technology to underpin the digital transformation for scores of industries in China
- First in a two-part series on how China’s 5G push is outpacing reality for much of the country’s industry
On a foggy morning in Beijing last Friday, two dozen tech entrepreneurs were vying for the attention of judges in a competition to find the best new 5G applications.
The event, co-sponsored by the Zhongguancun Software Park in the capital, was meant to highlight how next generation 5G wireless technology was being used in real-life projects today, but many contestants struggled to convince judges there was even a connection.
“Do you actually use 5G chips in your products?” one asked. “How is this related to 5G exactly?” probed another. The grilling continued: “Why does it have to be 5G?”
Some contestants even conceded that their products worked fine with existing 4G networks and Wi-fi, including the winner of the competition, a smart mobility start-up specialising in self-driving vehicles for open-air mining.
Such exchanges mirror the real life struggle to find cost-efficient, industrial-facing applications for 5G since the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) kick-started commercial 5G services nationwide in June 2019.
5G has been billed as an enabling technology to underpin the digital transformation for scores of industries ranging from manufacturing, mining and energy to health care, education and public security. In March this year, 5G was even named an essential element of the new digital infrastructure by the Communist Party’s Politburo, the country’s top decision-making body.