A Chinese manufacturer of telecoms equipment has announced that it is designing the communications architecture for a new generation of ‘driverless’ cars that will be connected to the Internet.

Eric Xu, the chief executive of Huawei, said that $600 million will be invested in R&D to roll out technologies based on 5G (fifth-generation) mobile networks.

Mr Xu said that these will be commercially viable by 2020. “We are in close partnerships with car manufacturers to find their requirements for 5G.

We will design communications modules that will connect cars to networks — and eventually enable vehicles to be driven, at least partially, by remote control.”

In October, Huawei announced that the first large-scale experimental use of its 5G mobile technology will take place at the football World Cup in 2018.