The APAC 5G Industry Forum (5GIF) on Thursday urged ecosystem cooperation and joint innovation to support industry digitalization. Held virtually online, the forum, co-hosted by Huawei Technologies, had over eight hundred (800) participants from over thirty (30) countries representing governments, telecom operators, academia, ICT, and other vertical industry players from the Asia Pacific region explore ideas around this year’s theme of “5G Inspiring new value, Accelerate Industry 4.0.”
The Forum this year invited technology partners and industry business owners to share and explore how a sustainable 5G partner ecosystem could be developed to create higher contributions and businesses in the Asia Pacific region. Speakers from different industries in China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand graced the event, as it is expected that 5G will revolutionize the global economy and shape business growth, and commercial and digital service acceleration.
“But there still have many challenges to overcome, 5G requires not only innovators but also brave practitioners to drive the development. In Thailand, Siriraj Hospital is a good example, they are facing many difficulties to transform traditional processes, but the hospital has finally started to use 5G services for remote patient monitoring, connected ambulances, and unmanned medicine vehicles to provide a higher quality of medication service to their patients,” according to Dennis Xiao, President of Huawei Technologies Asia Pacific Region in his opening remarks.
Mr. Dustin Kehoe, APAC & ME Service Director of Global Data, mentioned in the Forum that more than 15,000 ASEAN enterprises are spending over $246 billion for current ICT transformation, industries are starting to use 5G in manufacturing, oil and gas, healthcare, and other campus-based networks. ASEAN countries are very committed to enlarging industrial manpower through a variety of skill-sets and technology talent training.
“5GtoB will bring great benefit to the global economy and Huawei proposes a 1+N 5G target network to fulfill the requirements of video backhaul, machine vision, remote control and real-time positioning,” said Daisy Zhu, Vice President of Wireless Marketing at Huawei. Zhu then shared several examples of automation in manufacturing, airports and shipping ports highlighting 5G’s role in providing greater bandwidth, lower latency and positioning.
5GtoB solution is an ecosystem aimed at creating new value for every player across the industry value chain. The solution is aimed at simplifying transactions for enterprise users, help operators monetize their network capabilities, and allow partners to innovate more efficiently, and creating new value for every player involved.
The Forum covered two discussion panels, panelists from universities, consultants, government, and telecom operators had come up with common views for the industry standards, public policies, and regulation with economic benefits to capitalize on creating growth, improving quality, and maximizing efficiencies in product lines.
The 2nd panel session discussed the challenges and opportunities of 5G eco-systems cooperation. Huawei and operators have already established lots of IoT-based partnership cooperation frameworks in the past few years, which can help to build a faster local ecosystem. The next going forward is to explore more possible business use cases to create new commercial value, together with innovators, start-ups, and solutions providers to offer 5G enabled vertical industry solutions to accelerate industry digitalization.
The rapid deployment of 5G across the Asia Pacific has paved the way for new innovations in vertical industries. Continued ICT investment and cooperation will better serve the businesses of the region, accelerate industry digital transformation, and develop the local partner ecosystems necessary for inspiring new value and accelerating industry 4.0.