Nokia’s new technology lab to drive economic growth and jobs creation

Tech giant Nokia is bringing 5G innovation to Australia and has chosen Adelaide as its new base to drive future capabilities.

South Australia’s global reputation for investment in innovation and technology has attracted tech giant Nokia to set up home in Adelaide, with the announcement in August that it would be setting up a new National 5G Industrial Incubation Lab in the South Australian capital. The lab will drive jobs growth in 5G services and 5G-enabled industries across three key areas: rail passenger safety, airport situational awareness and energy management in a power network. So why Adelaide? “

“We were looking for a way in which we could collaborate in how industry could adopt 5G to drive economic growth and jobs creation,” says Jonathan Brine, Nokia director business development, government and cities Oceania. “That’s where we came together and formulated the view around setting up a National 5G Industrial Incubation Lab. We made it very specific to be a national approach but focused in Adelaide, which is where some of the key industries we’re targeting – space, defence, manufacture, agriculture and mining – are based.”

Support from the South Australian Government – including a joint submission for grant funding through the Federal Government’s $20 million Job Maker Digital Business Plan – was also a drawcard. “We collaborated with the South Australian Government’s Department for Trade and Investment (DTI), working with industry partners including the Department for Infrastructure and Transport (DIT), Adelaide Airport and SA Power Networks (SAPN) to jointly apply for the federal 5G innovation grant,” Brine says.

Nokia’s National 5G Industrial Incubation Lab will being new technologies to industry.

That collaboration, which also includes the Australian Institute for Machine Learning (AIML), MIT bigdata Living Lab, Sage Automation and Nokia Bell Labs Consulting, is aimed at realising the potential impact of 5G to help digitise physical industries across three user cases. The first is providing high-quality video streaming on trains for the DIT.

“At the moment, trains use CCTV so, when there is a public safety incident, that footage can only be drawn on when the train goes into the stable yards at the end of the day,” Brine says. “With 5G, you can do real-time analysis and push high-speed data and video analytics straight to the operations centre, the driver or the guards. This is a real first and has the potential to roll out nationally and globally.” For Adelaide Airport, high-definition videostreaming will be used for real-time analysis of airport inspection and safety monitoring. “We’re talking about potentially putting in a Microsoft HoloLens so you can do visual inspection in real time using 5G to qualify what’s going on, what is needed and how to fix it,” Brine says. “This also has wide applications in other industries.”

5G will be leveraged around drone technology and robots to assist SAPN asset management in dangerous situations. “SAPN can do comparative analysis between two points in time and, where the situations are high risk, the drones or robots can go in.”

The lab is expected to open by Christmas, with the results of the user cases to be delivered by September 2022. “At that point we’ll be able to qualify the benefit of the technology, and the potential to commercialise it and create new opportunities” Brine says. “The latest ABS statistics show there’s a significant jobs growth in the IT and telco sectors – this technology could help drive that growth.”