China to build over 600,000 new 5G stations in 2021

China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said the nation plans to accelerate the rollout of wireless technology while launching hundreds of thousands of new 5G base stations this year.

The country has already built more than 718,000 5G stations as of mid-December and 5G signals are available in more than 300 cities at prefecture level and above.

According to the Minister of Industry and Information Xiao Yaqing, China will add more than 600,000 5G base stations in 2021 and promote the building and application of 5G networks in an orderly manner. The government will also accelerate 5G coverage in major cities and advance cooperative construction and sharing of 5G base stations among telecom operators.

It will also carry out industrial 5G network pilot projects by focusing on 10 key industries and forming 20 typical industrial application scenarios, Xiao said as cited by China Daily.

Over 1,100 projects that focus on implementing the integration of 5G and the industrial internet were being built across China as of November, according to the ministry.

The China Academy of Information and Communications Technology has said that the country is likely to spend 1.2 trillion yuan ($184 billion) on 5G network construction by 2025, driving more than 3.5 trillion yuan ($536 billion) of investment in the upstream and downstream industrial chains and other related sectors by then.

Around 20 percent of 5G applications will be consumer-oriented, and 80 percent of its commercial potential lies in its use in traditional sectors, said the head of the academy Liu Duo.

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