Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Local governments in China are doubling down on plans to accelerate 5G rollout this year, experts said.

More than 20 provincial and municipal governments in China have emphasized efforts to accelerate construction of “new infrastructure” like 5G and data centers in their work plans for this year. Shanghai, for instance, said it plans to build more than 25,000 5G base stations this year to push forward the in-depth coverage of the superfast wireless network. The city also has ambitions to build super large computing power platforms to meet growing demand, China Daily reported.

Zhao Zhiguo, spokesman for the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, China’s top industry regulator, said earlier: “2022 is a critical year for the large-scale development of 5G applications. We will continue to improve 5G network coverage and accelerate the in-depth integration of 5G and vertical industries.” One of the priorities is to moderately speed up the coverage of 5G in counties and rural towns, Zhao said.

Ten ministries, including the Cyberspace Administration of China, recently unveiled a digital rural development action plan for the period from 2022 to 2025, which called for an intensified push to promote digital infrastructure upgrades in rural areas. Telecom operators are also moving fast. Telecom carriers’ 5G plans seek to harness the power of more than 1.4 million 5G base stations that stood in China by the end of last year. 5G signals are already available in urban areas of all prefecture-level cities, more than 98 percent of county-level towns and 80 percent of rural towns, MIIT data showed.