5G: Powering the
Future of Innovation

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5G technology ready to make Hong Kong a smarter city
Research institute ASTRI is helping businesses to leverage innovative solutions for more productive and efficient operations.

By Nicky Burridge

With its high speeds and low latency, 5G is set to usher in a new era of innovation in Hong Kong. This game-changing wireless technology will enable the next generation of smart city solutions ranging from autonomous vehicles to remote surgery and smart traffic management.

Roundtrip Latency (μs)

As Hong Kong’s largest research and development institute, ASTRI is in a prime position to help businesses harness the power of 5G. Set up in 2000 with the mission of making Hong Kong more competitive through innovation and technology, ASTRI has registered more than 860 patents since its launch, 23 of which have been sold. In addition, it has transferred almost 750 technologies to industry. ASTRI has won multiple awards and partnered with major international corporations, including Huawei and Intel, as well as various government departments and academic institutions.


To help businesses in Hong Kong capitalise on the benefits of 5G, ASTRI has developed a full set of solutions for the technology, including high-performance 5G core networks and pioneering O-RAN 5G base stations. O-RAN – Open Radio Access Network – is an open architecture platform that uses a standard configuration hardware to make it easy for businesses to customise a communications network to their needs.

Lucas Hui, Chief Technology Officer of ASTRI, explains that unlike 4G technology, where the network is owned by telecom providers, 5G enables individual organisations and businesses, such as shopping malls or hospitals, to build their own networks. “We try to make all of our 5G components very modular, so that it is easier and cheaper for businesses, including SMEs [small- and medium-sized enterprises], to build their own systems,” he says.

ASTRI’s open-architecture 5G solutions are available to Hong Kong businesses at a fraction of the cost that would be required if they were to develop the technology on their own – removing one of the key barriers to the adoption of 5G. ASTRI receives support from the Hong Kong government’s Innovation and Technology Fund to help subsidise the cost of developing technology for businesses. Some firms collaborate with ASTRI to create their own systems, while others pay a small licensing fee for ready-to-use solutions.

Once the technology is in place, it opens up significant possibilities for innovation. This is because 5G offers low latency – with data able to travel to its destination in one millisecond, compared with 50 milliseconds for 4G – in addition to high connectivity and the ability to collect data from 1 million devices per square kilometre. Chow says: “There can be sensors on anything you can think of, and they can all be connected. At its core, 5G is going to make the city extremely smart.”

One key application that 5G enables is cellular vehicle-to-everything technology (C-V2X), which enhances road safety by enabling vehicles and road infrastructure to communicate with each other. It can provide drivers with alerts about nearby cars or pedestrians, as well as breakdowns or approaching emergency services vehicles. “The end result is that you have a very safe environment and a very efficient transportation system,” Chow says. ASTRI is currently partnering with the Transport Department to run one of the world’s largest trials of C-V2X technology in Sha Tin in early 2021.


Smart manufacturing is also expected to see significant developments with 5G technology. Manufacturers can build their own 5G networks to incorporate automated guided vehicles (AGVs) that can manoeuvre themselves around dark factories or warehouses, delivering objects or conducting inspections in hard-to-reach areas, all without colliding with anyone or anything. Chow says: “Bandwidth is very important for AGVs – you cannot have latency, or there could be a lot of accidents.”

Hong Kong start-up ImageDeep is one company already benefiting from the rollout of 5G. The company manufactures bespoke inspection systems that mimic human eyes to provide remote security services as well as monitor activities at construction sites, factories, malls and schools.

Niall Dorr, co-founder and head of technology at ImageDeep, considers 5G a game-changer for his business. The technology has enhanced the start-up’s monitoring system for fast production lines, which performs real-time inspections of every product made to spot any defects early on and ultimately save on downstream costs. Using 5G minimises the time that ImageDeep staffers have to spend on-site setting up the system for clients.

Dorr explains: “We typically take images of each product as it passes through a production line, categorising it as good or bad. This traditionally meant having labour on-site to do real-time adjustments. Now all we do is send our systems directly to the factory, they install it and we train remotely.” He adds that with uptime and downtime varying across factory floors, it was costly to have labour on-site. “Now, we centralise that data back to our hub, whereby we can share our resources efficiently and thus increase revenue.”

In order for more businesses in Hong Kong to take up 5G technology, three crucial steps must be taken, according to Chow. First is making sure the technology is available and reliable. Second is ensuring 5G is affordable, and third is providing examples of use cases to help businesses understand the benefits. “I’d like to think of 5G as a tool, and it is the use cases that are going to bring economic value to Hong Kong. That is why we have worked so hard with industry to identify use cases and provide them with a solution,” he says.

ASTRI celebrating two decades of innovation with The Impact Conference

Virtual thought leadership event to discuss tech’s role in solving challenges of Covid-19 pandemic

Hong Kong Applied Science and Technology Research Institute (ASTRI) celebrated its 20th anniversary by hosting a virtual thought leadership event that connects the various stakeholders essential to developing the city’s innovation ecosystem.

The Impact Conference 2020, held online on November 11, would look at the opportunities that innovation and technology (I&T) offers for Hong Kong’s future, and how it can be harnessed to solve challenges facing the city as it re-emerges from the Covid-19 pandemic and the unprecedented turbulent times.

Hugh Chow, CEO of ASTRI, says: “The future is going to be filled with challenges, but every challenge that societies face is also an opportunity for us to leapfrog ahead, and for that you need innovation and technology to help you think and get outside of the status quo.”

Financial Secretary Paul MP Chan, GBM, GBS, MH, JP, opened the conference, highlighting the role that innovation and technology play in the long-term prosperity of Hong Kong. ASTRI Chairman Sunny Lee Wai-kwong, JP, provided an overview of the institute’s achievements since its establishment in 2000, and its outlook for the future.

Professor Lap-chee Tsui, founding president of The Hong Kong Academy of Sciences, discussed how to advance through collaboration. Professor Zexiang Li of the Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, who is also one of the founders of DJI, the world’s largest drone maker, provided a visionary outlook of innovation and technology. Dr Jacob Kam, CEO of MTR Corporation, outlined a day in the life of a future MTR customer. Dr Lam Ching-choi, a member of the Executive Council, discussed the future of HealthTech in the post-Covid-19 world.

Panel discussions addressed a range of topics, including how technology can drive future economic growth following the pandemic; 5G’s role in accelerating Hong Kong’s transformation into a smart city; how businesses can engage technology-empowered consumers; how advances in I&T affect global supply chains as well as shipping and logistics and e-commerce, in a virtual world and across borders; how HealthTech will impact the future population; and what it takes to sustain a tech-focused workforce.

Watch playback of The Impact Conference 2020:
https://astri-impact.scmp.com/agenda