China's 600,000 5G stations

Engineer working checking the communications tower. Photo / Getty images.

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"Explosion" of 5G terminals is expected to drive economic growth. People’s Daily Online

China has over 110 million 5G users and is expected to have more than 600,000 5G base stations by the end of this year.

The stations will cover all cities at prefecture level and above, according to the 5G Innovation and Development Forum held this month during the Smart China Expo Online in southwest China's Chongqing municipality.

Since 5G licences for commercial use for more than one year were issued, the country has made steady progress in the construction of its 5G network infrastructure, says Han Xia, director of the telecom department at the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

He says Chinese telecommunications companies have already built over 500,000 5G base stations with over 100 million 5G internet terminals.

So far, 5G has been deployed in sectors including ports, machinery, automobiles, steel, mining and energy, while 5G application has been accelerated in key areas such as industrial internet, Internet of Vehicles, medical care, and education, Han says.

The value of the country's industrial internet hit 2.13 trillion yuan last year, Yin Hao, an academician from the Chinese Academy of Sciences said at the forum, adding that the figure is expected to exceed 5 trillion yuan in 2025.

Smart China Expo Online (SCE OL) 2020 kicks off at the Lijia Intelligent Park in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality. Photo/Supplied.

The integrated development of "5G plus industrial internet" can create new products, generate new models and new forms of business, reduce enterprises' operating costs, improve production efficiency and optimise resource allocation, Yin says.

Meanwhile, according to Chen Shanzhi, vice president of the China Information and Communication Technologies Group Corporation (CICT), the combination of 5G and other emerging information technologies (including artificial intelligence, cloud computing and big data) will help accelerate the integrated development and innovation of other sectors and bring about explosive growth in the digital economy.

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