Chinese telecom device maker Huawei promised that they will provide EUR5 million, which is about USD6.3 million, to the 5G innovation center of University of Surrey, aiming to promote research and testing of next-generation data transmission standards.
The goal of the 5G innovation center of University of Surrey is to implement 5G technology application testing in the real world.
Though Huawei claimed that the fund should be helpful for the 5G technology development, it is still a relatively small investment compared with the company's previous promise, which is to invest USD600 million in the research of 5G technologies before 2018.
In regards to the research process of the 5G innovation center, the next step is to build a test bed. This process is expected to be completed in three stages over the next 12 months. The first stage will be completed around April 2015 and the test will be launched by then. As long as the entire test bed is operable, which is expected to be realized in September 2015, University of Surrey will have an active 5G infrastructure covering the entire campus of 17,000 teaching staff and students.
Huawei hopes that the company could demonstrate 5G technologies before 2018 and launch 5G network in U.K. in 2022.