Ahead of this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Intel has confirmed expected plans to collaborate with Dell, HP and Lenovo on the first wave of 5G-enabled PCs.
Talking up the partnership in an editorial piece, Intel's senior vice president and general manager of the Network Platforms Group Sandra Rivera says that "As we head to Mobile World Congress (MWC), Intel is working with industry partners and network operators to accelerate technology innovation across network, client and cloud."
"Our commitment to delivering 5G spans the work we do in the standards bodies, early tests and trials that give us critical learnings on technology implementation and commercial opportunities, and our investments in ecosystem enabling and hardware and software products. We have started 2018 at a sprint with new product introductions and industry collaborations in all of these areas."
Intel have also announced a multi-year collaboration with Spreadtrum to develop a 5G phone platform incorporating the company's Intel XMM 8000 series modem. They expect the first fruits of this partnership to emerge during the second half of 2019.
Though further specifics on either of these products roadmaps are unavailable at this time, the chipset maker expects the first wave of 5G-ready hardware to hit retailers and eCommerce platforms around the late-2019 holiday period.
In the meantime, Intel will be showing of a 5G-enabled 2-in-1 concept PC at their booth at this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. According to Rivera, this will serve to "demonstrate the progress we’ve made to integrate these advanced wireless technologies into the mobile PC platform."
As for 5G networks themselves, carriers worldwide are currently preparing to build and launch networks in 2019 following the certification of the first official 5G spec by 3GPP. When they do eventually arrive, 5G networks are expected to deliver speeds up to ten gigabytes per second.
For a longer look at everything that happened at this year's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, click here.
Disclosure - Our coverage of MWC 2018 was sponsored by Intel who covered the cost of our flights and accommodation.
