China continues to outspend the United States on 5G infrastructure, widening the gap between both countries in this game-changing mobile technology that promises a revolution in the digital realm with its superfast download speeds.
China remains ahead of the United States when it comes to 5G infrastructure investments, said Rebecca Fannin, founder of Silicon Dragon Ventures, a news, events and research website covering innovation and investment hubs in the Silicon Valleys of the world.
"We are starting to see the separation of East and West on the roll-out of 5G," said Fannin at CNBC's East Tech West conference Monday at Guangzhou, China. "China is outspending the U.S. on 5G infrastructure by billions of dollars, hundreds of billions of dollars."
Fannin also noted China "is very ambitious to lead in many technology sectors. 5G is one; AI is another."
She pointed out China is leapfrogging many of the traditional tech sectors "and it got into mobile, and mobile Internet and smartphones more rapidly. It has a young digital-savvy population that takes new ideas very quickly. It will all escalate 5G's development in China."
5G is the fifth-generation of mobile internet connectivity. It's been proven to provide much faster data download and upload speeds, far wider mobile coverage and more stable connections. Artificial intelligence (AI) and the internet-of-things are widely expected to benefit from 5G rollouts.
China's edge over the U.S. in 5G is wide and getting wider. It rolled out its first 5G networks on November 1 when state-owned carriers China Mobile, China Unicom, and China Telecom unveiled their 5G data plans.
5G is now available in 50 Chinese cities, including Beijing and Shanghai. Monthly plans range from CNY128 ($18) to CNY599 ($85), according to Xinhua News Agency, the official state-run press agency.
Xinhua said more than 130,000 5G base stations throughout China will be activated by the end of the year to support the 5G network. This will become the world's largest 5G deployment.
China Mobile, one of China's three top communication providers, has plans to set-up more than 50,000 5G base stations in China and launch 5G commercial services in more than 50 cities by the end of the year.
China outspent the United States by $24 billion in 5G wireless communications infrastructure from 2015 to 2018, said a report by Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Ltd (Deloitte), a multinational professional services network based in London. China announced the commercial rollout of 5G in October.
"Looking forward, China's five-year economic plan specifies $400 billion in 5G-related investment. Consequently, China and other countries may be creating a 5G tsunami, making it near impossible to catch up," said the Deloitte report.
None of the four major U.S. carriers have rolled out a major national 5G network. 5G has rolled out only in a few major U.S. cities.
