A 5G research centre intended to make Wales a global leader in this technology was officially launched at M-SParc (Bangor University’s Science Park on Anglesey) last month.

The Digital Signal Processing (DSP) Centre is run by professors and researchers from Bangor University, with partners that include Huawei and BT.

The DSP Centre will undertake research into digital communications systems like mobile phones, Wi-Fi hubs and modern manufacturing lines; it will look at ways to use existing fibre technology in the 5G network to improve capacity, flexibility, functionality and services.

Collaboration agreements will be signed with global companies in the digital economy (such as BT, Fujitsu and Huawei) and leading Welsh companies (such as TWI, FibreSpeed and Comtek).

Pryderi ap Rhisiart, managing director of M-SParc (www.m-sparc.com), said: “This may not be the sort of technology people expect to see when they think of North West Wales, and that’s exactly why we established Menai Science Park.

“Work like this, on the cutting edge, can and does happen here. Many of our tenants are developing technologies and products that are the first of their kind.”

Project leader Jianming Tang said: “The research we will be conducting aims to meet the challenges of 5G mobile networks by seeking solutions to improve bandwidth provision, lower latency and increase connection density by making
the networks more elastic and adaptive.”