The centre, which will accommodate more than 170 researchers, has received £70million of investment, including £12m from the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE).
Professor Rahim Tafazolli, director of 5GIC, said: “While we have already achieved record-breaking speeds, 5G is not only about delivering faster mobile internet. It is a transformative set of technologies that will radically change our private and professional lives by enabling innovative applications and services, such as remote healthcare, wireless robots, driverless cars and connected homes and cities, removing boundaries between the real and cyber worlds. These capabilities make 5G a ‘Special Generation’ of connectivity.
Opening alongside the Centre is the 5GIC’s new testbed facility, featuring a fully functioning advanced 4G network. Over time, this will be upgraded to include 5G technologies and large scale Internet of Things. By 2018, the testbed should deliver 10Gbit/s per cell, ten times faster than the highest 4G data rate.
