Finland Times

The European Union (EU) and South Korea on Monday have agreed to enhance cooperation to jointly develop 5G mobile technologies.

    

According to an EU official statement, the two sides on Monday signed in Seoul a Joint Declaration on Strategic Cooperation in Information Communications Technology (ICT) and 5G, agreeing to deepen discussions in the area of Net Futures (network and communications, 5G, cloud computing), an element of on-going relations on ICT topics.

    

Both sides will also work towards a coordinated call for research project proposals, to be launched in 2016.

    

5G technology which is set to be 1000 times faster than the 4G services currently available is in its early stages of development.

    

Both the EU and South Korea are investing heavily in 5G. In December 2013, the European Commission, or the EU's executive body, launched a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) on 5G. The EU is investing 700 million euros (950 million U.S. dollars) over the next seven years into the 5GPPP through the Horizon 2020 program. EU industry is set to match this investment by up to 5 times, to more than 3 billion euros.

    

South Korea is investing and coordinating research its efforts through 5G Forum and there are other major public and industry-led initiatives in Chinese mainland, Taiwan, Japan and the United States. (1 euro = 1.357 U.S. dollars)