(Yicai Global) Oct. 28 -- Shanghai’s first fifth-generation mobile network industrial park, which opened in Jinqiao town, Pudong New Area in 2020, is transforming into a global 5G incubation and development cluster.

Jinqiao 5G Industrial Park has the biggest concentration of 5G businesses in Shanghai. Many leading companies, such as telecoms giants Huawei Technologies and Nokia Shanghai Bell as well as car manufacturer SAIC Motor, are based in the park, and together they employ around 55,000 5G specialists.

Jinqiao 5G Industrial Park will not only develop 5G, but will also expand to include all communication technologies including starlink, in order to stay ahead of the field, Du Shaoxiong, general manager of state-owned Shanghai Jinqiao Export Processing Zone Development, told Yicai Global.

That Jinqiao can develop a 5G industrial park is due to the area’s original industrial strengths, said Du, whose company was the developer behind the Jinqiao Economic and Technological Development Zone.

Jinqiao’s advanced manufacturing industry depends heavily on 5G. Jinqiao has big advantages in terms of industrial combined effect, radiation reach and industrial empowerment, so many communication companies including the China Mobile Shanghai Industrial Research Institute have shifted here, Yuan Xin, chairman of Nokia Shanghai Bell, told Yicai Global.

Huawei set up its Shanghai Research Center in Jinqiao in the 1990s and then moved to the area in 2010. The Shenzhen-based company employs around 10,000 staff nationwide on 5G projects, around half of which are based at the Shanghai Research Institute. It also has research hubs in Chengdu in southwestern Sichuan province, Shenzhen in southern Guangdong province and Xi’an in central Shaanxi province.

Shanghai should strive to lead the country in terms of 5G innovation and development and should be an important 5G incubation and development hub by 2023, the Shanghai Communications Administration said in March.

There are around 44,000 people employed in core 5G R&D in China, just over half of which, at 23,000, are in Shanghai, according to preliminary statistics.

Editor: Kim Taylor