China’s Internet of Things (IoT) industry set to surge following the commercial deployment of 5G technology by 2020

It is believed that 2020 will mark the start of the initial adoption of the 5G wireless network in China, U.S.A, Japan, and Europe. Many telecom operators, telecom equipment manufacturers, and mobile phone chip makers have made an effort to research and develop (R&D) the 5G technology and China’s top three telecom operators have all mapped out their plans to ensure commercial deployment of the 5G network by 2020.

Zhang Feng, Chief Engineer of the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said that China will kick off the commercial adoption of the 5G network by 2020. China started 5G technology R&D officially in January 2016, and tests will be carried out from 2016-2018 in three stages: key technology verification, technical solution verification, and system verification.

The 5G technology is expected to drive its own technical revolution. 5G technology will allow data traffic to increase from 100Mb/s (under 4G technology) to tens of Gb/s. It is believed that the extensive commercial applications of 5G technology will drive an exponential growth in many segments of the IoT industry, including internet of vehicles, big data, cloud computing, smart home and unmanned aerial vehicle, and will also spur the rise of artificial intelligence and smart manufacturing sectors.