Mobile World Congress 2018: High stake in 5G for China's state run telco majors

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This year's MWC provides a sneak peek into the future--that is how the upcoming 5G network can support driverless vehicles. We show you what Chinese telcos have been up to in their 5G drive.

5G and autonomous driving, a perfect match. That is a trend at this year's Mobile World Congress. These cars will connect with a database on the cloud to analyze traffic and guide movements. The current internet is not fast enough to support such real-time decision making. But it will change.

LEI KUNYU CHINA UNICOM SOFTWARE ENGINEER "Press this button to start driving. Press the yellow one to reverse. Now we start the car and let AI do the trick. See the car is moving, and it can turn left or right by itself. 5G network allows the time delay to be only around 30 milliseconds."

LI YIZHE CHINA UNICOM 5G UNIT DIRECTOR "Auto driving has high requirements for safety, meaning the time delay for any action should be minimal. It also needs high speed video transmission for traffic analysis. All this can be done with the 5G network."

Some companies have already built self-driving cars that are ready to hit the road. The only roadblock now is the lack of laws and regulations for autonomous driving.

LIAO LEIMING DATANG MOBILE STRATEGIC MARKETING MANAGER "This car has embedded with 5G connectivity. It allows the car to process more data and scenarios with the cloud, more efficient than ordinary AI assistant."