Shanghai Becomes Biggest Powerhouse for 5G Talents in China
Shanghai has become China’s biggest powerhouse for 5G wireless technology talents, according to a report by the online recruitment platform BOSS Zhipin.
About 23,000 research and development talents in the 5G core industry are located in Shanghai, accounting for more than 52% of the total core 5G R&D personnel, the report showed.
China has promoted the construction of 5G base station networks in recent years. As early as February 2013, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, National Development and Reform Commission, and Ministry of Science and Technology jointly established a 5G promotion group, launching 5G trials.
Government support policy and corporate concentration have contributed to the gathering of 5G talents in eastern China’s Shanghai.
Last July, Shanghai released a statement on accelerating 5G network construction and application. The statement said that Shanghai would “set up a number of R&D innovation bases, supporting enterprises and scientific research institutions to build 5G application innovation centers and industrial research institutes.”
What’s more, Shanghai would also increase funding support for 5G enterprises and “encourage social capital such as venture capital funds and private equity funds to support the development of 5G technology.”
Shanghai is also home to most of China’s information technology researchers, according to Huawei Technologies, local news reported. “As the main research location for Huawei’s 5G, Huawei’s Shanghai Research Institute is very important.”
Huawei said that its 5G R&D personnel are mainly located in Shanghai, followed by Chengdu, Shenzhen and Xi’an. The 5G layout of the Shanghai Research Institute is mainly focused on the research, development, testing and delivery of four main product series: 5G base station, 5G core network, 5G chip, and 5G terminal (mobile phone). Now there are about 5,000 5G core R&D personnel at the Shanghai Research Institute.
Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park, 11 kilometers away from the Huawei base, is home to ZTE’s Shanghai R&D Center and a number of 5G companies.
As of the end of July, Shanghai had built over 25,000 5G outdoor base stations and over 31,000 5G indoor small stations, becoming the city with the most 5G base stations deployed in the country, according to Shanghai Municipal Commission of Economy and Information Technology.
Currently, 31 provinces and more than 106 cities across the country have issued policy documents to support the development of 5G, according to Liu Yulin, an official with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China.
The demand for talents in 5G-related positions recovered rapidly in the second quarter, with a year-on-year increase of 3.4% and a quarter-on-quarter increase of 39.8%,the recruitment platform showed.
The recruiting platform also showed that the average monthly salary of domestic 5G talents in the past 18 months was about 13,066 yuan. Among them, senior technical positions such as 5G architects and 5G physical layer R&D engineers can earn 30,000 to 40,000 yuan or more per month.
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China is also expected to be the biggest purchaser of 5G smartphones in 2020, with some 172 million 5G smartphones being sold in China this year, accounting for about 62% of the global total, according to a recent report by research firm Canalys.
“It is expected that by 2021, nearly 60% of 5G smartphone shipments in China will be cheaper than $400, while 5G penetration in China will reach 83% in the next 12 months,” said Jin Shengtao, an analyst at Canalys, according to a local news report.
“China’s 5G market has a big future,” according to a 2020 China 5G Economy report led by Zhang Xiaoqiang, the executive vice chairman of China International Economic Exchange Center.
The report projected that by 2025, China will account for 30% of the world’s connections, which means that China will be the world’s largest 5G market, which will have a huge impact on the global economy.
