Australia’s first industry-university 5G Innovation Lab is open for business

By Deon Liebenberg

We love big, bold ideas at Optus and on Tuesday 18 May 2021 we officially opened the doors to Western Australia’s first industry-university 5G lab.

The ground-breaking, state-of-the-art centre for innovation created by Optus Enterprise and Curtin University is a dedicated research lab set to unleash new 5G industry applications and enhance student experience.

Innovation is all about coming up with novel and useful ideas, and the doors to this new striking and immersive space are now open for co-creation, exploration and collaboration on all things 5G.

Curtin 5G Lab – Powered by Optus is a place where students, faculty and industry partners can play around with cutting-edge technology and provides a testbed for new applications of 5G that will benefit both Australian society as a whole and businesses across many different sectors.

Our shared dream is for this space to enable advances in artificial intelligence, robotics and more, to solve tangible customer challenges and deliver commercial outcomes and to stimulate future economic growth through innovation.

As the nation’s first industry-university 5G collaboration space, the 5G Lab will be a true game-changer for 5G research and advancements at a time when many organisations are seeking to find new and better ways of doing things, and to enjoy commercial benefits including increased agility and revenue, decreased costs and better market differentiation.

Reaching out to the future

The future came into clear focus during the launch of the 5G Lab, as people from Optus and Curtin University showcased the lightning fast speeds and low latency of the Optus 5G network and some of the exciting applications of 5G technology – from the remote operation of robots to training for guide dog owners and even a way to remotely monitor the brain of an epilepsy patient so the clinician can deliver a real-time response.

It’s unsurprising that remoteness is a feature of many of the new applications for 5G that are now being explored.

Ubiquitous, fast and reliable connectivity is vital for anyone needing to deliver a high-quality experience that overcomes the tyranny of distance.

And 5G technology has the potential to transform not only education, but also healthcare, mining, oil and gas, agriculture and much more across the remote regions of Western Australia and nationally.

Building tomorrow’s digital capability

5G has the capability to transform education and support new academic applications, including artificial intelligence, robotics, virtual and augmented reality.

With Optus 5G now available across Curtin’s campus, students will be able to prepare for their own digital future by experiencing the power of 5G through practical, hands-on applied research undertaken in partnership with forward-thinking partners in industry and academia.

As always, we’re committed to opening new worlds of connectivity that deliver real results to our customers and their customers in turn.

Having recently smashed the commercial 5G mobile download speed record in Sydney and Melbourne, the opening of this 5G lab is the latest example of how Optus is raising the bar on innovation through our network.

Find out more about the Curtin 5G Lab.