5G still in search of its flagship application

The rise of 5G, both inside and outside companies, could give birth to a million new ideas and new concepts. Imagine amusement parks distributing augmented reality glasses for immersive experiences, for example.

This is just one of the ideas being explored by entrepreneurs and developers, as 5G takes hold in our companies.

In order to explore this new frontier, several major technology and telecommunications companies have come together to launch the 5G Open Innovation Lab, which aims to support collaboration between startups, industry leaders, technical experts and investors interested in the potential of 5G. This effort is supported by Deloitte, Dell, Intel, Microsoft and Nokia.

AI needs 5G

“The opportunity for developers to have an impact on the potential of 5G is more important than connectivity,” according to Jim Brisimitzis, founder of the 5G Open Innovation Lab.

Industry observers agree that 5G represents a new frontier for innovation, which is just beginning to gain momentum. “It is difficult to find innovations that can consume and take advantage of the bandwidth and latency of new 5G networks,” says Dan Hays, PwC partner. “With 5G networks, capabilities such as network slicing and ultra-low latency are about to finally become a reality.”

Emerging technologies such as AI can also benefit from the 5G revolution. “Generative AI technologies are bandwidth-intensive,” Hays continues. “They are looking to take advantage not only of better bandwidth, but also of efficient IT architectures – including edge computing and the hybrise cloud – to serve as machine rooms for their applications. The bandwidth, latency and reduced cost of these technologies are paving the way for new applications and new services, ranging from virtual fitting rooms to AI-assisted repairs for industrial equipment.”

New paths in terms of city design and urban planning

Slalom Element Labs is an example of a company that is working directly with Ericsson to develop new use cases for 5G in business. For example, the use of augmented reality: “We have created immersive urban landscape experiences that provide a real-time visual rendering of demographic, transport, ecological and geographical data, allowing people to see existing places in a new way,” explains John Tomik, managing director of Slalom Element Labs. “The low latency and high performance of 5G give the impression of living in a future world when you see the details in this way and, for the first time, allow the experience to resemble that of a human being.”

Another innovation supported by 5G could be interaction with digital humans, Tomik continues. “We see a difference when the calculation is done at the edge of a 5G network,” he explains. “The gestures, the response time and the human interactivity acquire a quality worthy of a Hollywood film, which makes it possible to innovate”.

5G could also open up new paths in terms of city design and urban planning. “Think of a traffic light that can see an intersection and process data quickly, thanks to edge computing, while returning useful information wherever it is, thanks to 5G,” explains Mark Varnas, database administrator and consultant at Red9. “The short and immediate effect is that there will no longer be unnecessary waits at traffic lights, but the long-term potential of a city driven by data in this way can have major effects on improving our way of life.”

Improving the visitor experience in amusement parks

Mr. Hays, from PwC, gives an example of a 5G use case that pushes the boundaries of innovation: improving the visitor experience in amusement parks. “Imagine an amusement park guard wearing augmented reality glasses while he does his job in the park,” he illustrates.

“Thanks to the power of 5G, the glasses could detect tired, hungry or simply important customers. When the on-board facial recognition software, processed on a local computer network, identifies a customer who might need attention, it could assign a level of importance to him and act.

Source: “ZDNet.com “