Elected to 5GAA Board Member
Samsung Electronics announced on May 19 that it has become a new board member of 5G Automotive Association (5GAA), a global cross-industry association of companies from the telecommunications and automotive industries, a move to speed up development of connected car technology.
The 5GAA has been established in September last year to develop and commercialize future vehicles based on the next generation 5G mobile networks, such as connected cars and autonomous cars. The current members of the 5GAA board of directors include major global automakers like Audi, BMW and Daimler, as well as wireless network service providers and telecom equipment makers including Qualcomm, Intel, Nokia and Vodafone. South Korea’s three mobile carriers – SK Telecom, KT and LG U+ – are also included as the members of the 5GAA board of directors.
In particular, the 5GAA has been growing to become the world’s key organization to link telecommunications and automotive industries. As a part of such efforts, it established a partnership with the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), an international body for mobile communications industry collaboration. Samsung Electronics is the only electronics (Tier-1) company in the 5GAA board. In the past, the board members were consisted of only automakers and communications companies.
Samsung Electronics plans it will take a full-fledged action to create a synergy with U.S. automotive electronics company Harman International Industries that it acquired in March upon becoming a board member of the 5GAA. The company will also expand its efforts to activate the next generation connected car industry, lead the development of new technologies and commercialize them based on the international standards. The 5G network not only improves mobile use experience significantly but also becomes more important as the link binding various sectors. The connected car is a great example of the internet of things (IoT) development based on the 5G network.