China today is one of the biggest spenders on research and development (R&D) in the world. In 2020, China’s spending on R&D increased by 10.3 percent to 2.44 trillion renminbi ($378 billion), accounting for 2.4 percent of its GDP. In March 2021, during the annual session of the National People’s Congress, Premier Li Keqiang announced that Beijing will aim to increase the nationwide R&D spending by more than 7 percent annually.
One focus of China’s R&D push is the latest fifth generation, or 5G, wireless technology. The advent of 5G is expected to boost wireless connectivity and communications, thus enabling a new wave of innovations and offering greater bandwidth network capacity. G technology is also expected to be a step-change in mobile networking, promising exponentially faster download speeds and data-sharing in real time and reduced network latency. Li set a goal for China to get 56 percent of the country on 5G networks this year, and China is aiming to complete the installation of 5G network infrastructure during the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) period.
According to public data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), as of the end of 2020, China has built the largest 5G network in the world, with over 718,000 5G base stations throughout the country and 5G coverage for all prefecture-level cities, as well as over 200 million 5G terminal connections. This is at least 10 times the 5G network in the United States, and far outstrips 5G networks in other countries.
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