Henan province in central China has been frequently appearing on social media platforms for its innovative representation of traditional Chinese culture in TV programs. However, this month it caught public attention again due to the recently-concluded 2023 World 5G Convention in provincial capital Zhengzhou, where 115 cooperation projects with a total investment of more than 11 billion RMB were signed. The convention has provided new opportunities for the development of Henan's digital economy and informatization.

In April, Henan released a plan to accelerate 5G network construction and industrial development to enhance 5G development.

According to Tao Manxi, deputy director general of the Henan Provincial Department of Science and Technology, Henan has built a new digital infrastructure system to make breakthroughs. It is based on 5G and gigabit optical networks, with computing infrastructure such as super-large data centers as the core.?

The rapid development of 5G has strengthened the convergent development of cross-industries, giving Henan a competitive edge in 5G development. One example is the Jinling Coal Mine in Henan's Dengfeng city. Affiliated with the Zhengzhou Dengcao Group, it has become an intelligent coal mine with 5G signal in its deep underground areas, and a digital intelligent scheduling center equipped with 45 safety monitoring and control subsystems. With 5G, the mine has achieved information sharing, data interoperability and real-time monitoring.

This application scenario was made possible thanks to cooperation with China Mobile and Huawei Technologies, making Henan the first province in China to realize?full coverage of commercial 5G-A network in underground areas in October. The uplink speed can go up to 1.1 Gbps, enabling data return from more than?100 high-definition camera videos simultaneously.?

Moreover, 5G-A base station equipment can cover 50 percent more than?the area covered by?the original 5G network equipment while the deployment cost has been reduced by over 30 percent. Underground miners can use explosion-proof mobile phones to connect with the world outside at any time and report the underground situation. Both the voice and video calls are clear and smooth.

Henan's superior regional transport access, broad market, and massive data resources have contributed to its digital economy development and 5G reform. The integration of 5G with cloud computing, big data, the Internet of Things, AI, intelligent sensing and machine communication has led to the creation of vertical industrial applications in intelligent manufacturing, industrial Internet, vehicle networking, smart medical care and smart logistics.

In November, Songshan Laboratory based in Zhengzhou announced two research achievements: a multi-modal network environment and an endogenous cloud-native security platform. These will be promoted in sectors such as electric power, healthcare and finance to provide Chinese solutions for network environment facilities and network security protection.

"This new round of 5G innovation will bring major opportunities for consolidating Henan's economic strength and building it into an innovation hub in central China," Tao said.