At the Mobile World Congress Shanghai, Nokia and Tencent have signed an agreement to combinedly research and development to explore the potential of 5G for the provision of new applications, including those for a variety of vertical markets.
Both the companies will establish an end-to-end 5G test environment in Shenzhen. Thanks to the 1.04 billion WeChat and QQ active users monthly, Tencent aims to leverage the massive connectivity, increase speeds, capacity and reliability and lower latency enabled by 5G to enhance these services.
They will leverage the artificial intelligence and automation management capabilities enabled by 5G to promote international standards and an open-source ecosystem. This will also expand the development of new services in the future. The companies will use technologies like Edge Computing, to conduct 5G applications research and benefit a number of vertical markets, including transportation, finance, energy, intelligent manufacturing, and entertainment.
This will open up new possibilities in the introduction of applications such as Cellular Vehicle-to-Everything (C-V2X). Other key elements that are a part of the agreement include establishing a joint laboratory equipped with leading 5G technologies, products, and solutions, centralized and decentralized split architecture using Nokia Airscale Radio Access Network, 5G Core, MEC framework. Both the companies will conduct verification on service key performance indicators and develop new 5G and IoT use cases.
Zeng Yu, Vice President at Tencent, said:
We are pleased to collaborate with Nokia to leverage the technologies, products and expertise of both our companies to fufill the growing demands of a digital economy driven by 5G. Tencent and Nokia are fully committed to delivering richer, more diverse, multi-level services and applications for enterprises, and individual customers. Furthermore, we will support each other in creating more financial and social benefits in our respective fields, to pursue success in the new era of digital economy.
Marc Rouanne, president of Mobile Networks at Nokia, said:
This collaboration with Tencent is an important step in showing webscale companies around the globe how they can leverage the end-to-end capabilities of Nokia’s 5G Future X portfolio. Working with them 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.