Mranti launches national testbed for 5G innovation

Posted on June 18, 2023 by Design in Design Innovation | 0 Comments

PETALING JAYA: The Malaysian Research Accelerator for Technology and Innovation (Mranti) launched the national testbed for 5G innovation at Mranti Park in Bukit Jalil yesterday.

This 5G-ready, Mranti Park offers full-fledged infrastructure, facilities and services to support the commercialisation of new 5G technologies across the innovation development lifecycle. This includes access to cutting-edge equipment, high-speed computing facilities and resources, as well access to and support from industry experts. Plans are underway to develop a 12km autonomous vehicle living lab in the vicinity, in addition to a 5-acre drone centre of excellence to advance the development of Industry 4.0 solutions.

Science, Technology and Innovation (Mosti) minister Chang Lih Kang said that Mranti will be the nucleus for the development and deployment of wide-ranging transformative societal and sectoral applications using next-generation technology.

“The launch of Mranti 5G Experience Centre is a significant milestone to fast track new innovations that will improve the way we live, work and play in a more enriching data-driven future. Designed for prototyping, testing and development, the Mranti 5G Experience Centre will complement a growing number of 5G innovation facilities in Malaysia,“ he added.

The Mranti 5G Experience Centre is the first government-led 5G centre that offers a prototyping, test, demo and lab area with speeds up to 1GBps, for industry applications and use cases by vertical sectors to be showcased.

At the event, Chang announced five proof-of-concepts (POC) involving network operators, IoT solution providers and technology developers. These POC include solutions for healthcare, agriculture, smart city development, drone technology, surveillance and more to benefit B40 communities as well as industry. With higher throughput, ultra-low latency, 5G can offer speeds up to 50 times faster, 10 times more responsiveness and much lower power connectivity than 4G3 . With this, the development time and cycle for innovators of 5G use cases is expected to greatly improve.

“We recognise that having proof of concepts is one of the steps in winning over enterprise confidence for 5G adoption and the national testbed propels this, and we aim to funnel as many of these along to be commercialised,” said Mranti’s CEO Dzuleira Abu Bakar.

Mranti also announced its collaboration with the Groupe Speciale Mobile Association. The initiative will open up market access for Malaysian innovators to potentially collaborate with more than 1,000 mobile ecosystem players worldwide to advance locally designed and produced innovation.