University awarded funding for 5G Innovation Centre

The UK Research Partnership Investment Fund has awarded the University £11.6 million in government money, which is underpinned by an additional £24 million from a consortium of key mobile operators and infrastructure providers, including Huawei, Samsung, Telefonica Europe, Fujitsu Laboratories of Europe, Rohde & Schwarz and AIRCOM International. It brings the total funds available to £35 million.

The money will be used to develop a specialised 5G Innovation Centre to stimulate significant expansion in telecommunications research, development and innovation, and the provision of broadband mobile Internet services, with significant downstream benefits for economic growth.

Professor Rahim Tafazolli, one of the UK’s leading communications experts, who heads up the University’s Centre for Communication Systems Research, said: “The global telecommunications industry is already responsible for six per cent of world GDP. Mobile communications data traffic is expected to increase 1,000 fold by 2020, by which time there will be an estimated 50 billion Internet-capable devices.

“The growth in the number of new applications running on the networks is accelerating, as ever more mobile devices become the preferred route for Internet access. Such unprecedented data traffic growth requires the urgent introduction of new 5G advanced technologies that maximise the use of the limited available radio spectrum and provide for greener technologies and solutions.”

Professor Sir Christopher Snowden, President and Vice-Chancellor of the University, said: “The new 5G Centre will enable the UK to lead this rapidly expanding segment of the global digital economy. It will consolidate the leading position of our own Centre for Communication Systems Research in Europe and paves the way for the further development of our long-term strategic partnerships with major global telecommunications organisations and significant inward investment into both Surrey and the UK.”