South Korean telecom giant SK Telecom on Monday promised to bring everything from 5G-enabled autonomous cars to artificial intelligence-powered holograms to the latest edition of Mobile World Congress. The company’s “5G diplomacy” push is meant to illustrate some of the vast possibilities of the next generation of mobile networks and provide consumers with a better idea of what kind of products and services they can expect from 5G in the near future. SK Telecom’s exhibition area at MWC 2018 will be advertised with a massive “Kinetic Display” with moving parts and will revolve around the theme of “perfect 5G,” the wireless carrier said.
The company is planning to use the Barcelona, Spain-based trade show as an opportunity to officially announce the upcoming arrival of its commercial 5G network and detail what its customers can expect from the next generation of connectivity in terms of speeds, capacities, and latencies. SK Telecom’s cellular technologies scheduled to be showcased at the event include a solution for transitioning clients between 4G LTE and 5G networks, as well as a real-time streaming platform based on the first implementable 5G specification completed by the 3GPP late last year. The “hologram AI” that will also be demonstrated at the event hasn’t been detailed by the company, with the Seoul-based network operator only stating that the technology is meant to provide consumers with a first look at an entirely “new mobile communications experience.” The tech giant will be joined by five startups in its exhibition space, three of which have been selected to be featured at the show thanks to their involvement with the open-source Telecom Infra Project ran by Facebook. SK Telecom will be helping all of them showcase their solutions and strike new partnerships at the event, the company said. In the field of self-driving transportation, the firm will be showcasing its vehicle-to-everything platform that recently allowed it to successfully complete the world’s first 5G-powered autonomous driving test involving multiple cars, and will also demonstrate its 3D HD mapping technology.
MWC 2018 is scheduled to take place over the first four days of the next week, though pre-show conferences will already be starting this weekend when tech giants from around the world are expected to announce their latest products. The new iteration of the mobile industry’s largest annual trade show will bring approximately 2,300 companies from 208 countries to Barcelona, and representatives of many more startups and firms are expected to attend the event in an unofficial capacity.