The Pontificia Universidad Católica (PUC) of Chile will implement the country’s first 5G technology pilot and business development center, which aims to carry out prototypes and scaling of digital solutions for different industries, informed today the Chilean government’s Production Development Corporation (Corfo).
“Through the 5G Center w,e seek to add value, enhance, pilot, and develop new technological solutions that come from SMEs, enterprises, or startups, to contribute to the productive transformation of the sectors in the territories,” said the executive vice president of Corfo, José Miguel Benavente.
The entity presented on Monday, the details of the Scaling and New Business Center (5TEC), a public-private initiative, warded to the PUC and strategic partners n charge of promoting and facilitating the creation and development of new businesses based on 5G technology applications in Chile.
According to the parties, the aim is to work with priority productive sectors of the South American country, such as health, mining, forestry, logistics, mobility, and intelligent cities, through investing more than 9 billion pesos (about 11.2 million dollars) over six years.
Pedro Bouchon, vice-rector of Research at the Catholic University, said that this center “constitutes a great opportunity to make Chile a reference point for the application of this technology and its evolutions in the innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem, both public and private, at an international level”.
Bouchon highlighted the importance of this type of initiative to transform the economy and contribute to local society and its potential to impact national and international industries.
Chile was in21 the first country in Latin America to tender the spectrum with national coverage for the 5G network, which meant an improvement in higher speed, data traffic, and digitization of various processes.
The launch of 5G was framed within a series of measures adopted by the Chilean government in connectivity, among which the National Fiber Optic, Southern Fiber Optic (south), Tarapacá Fiber Optic (north), and Connectivity for Education 2030 projects stand out, which seeks to connect educational establishments with high-speed Internet.