As China increases its efforts to build the world’s most extensive 5G network by 2020, Chinese telecom equipment maker ZTE Corp has announced that it will be doubling its spending for research on the fifth-generation mobile telecommunications network.
ZTE has increased its investment in 5G research and development from 1 billion yuan last year to 2 billion yuan (approx. $295.5 million) every year from 2017 onwards. According to a research paper issued by the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information, ZTE and Huawei Technologies are expected to be major beneficiaries in the massive 1.65 trillion yuan cumulative 5G capital spending by China.
Telecom companies in the United States and China are currently competing to lead development of 5G technology, which is expected to be significantly faster than the current 4G network technology.