Sponsored by the city of Bellevue, the 5G Open Innovation Lab is Washington’s newest Innovation Partnership Zone. The new zone will serve as a global hub for the development of next generation 5G mobile networks and technology. Partners in the new IPZ include the University of Washington, 5G Open Innovation Lab and Pacific Northwest National Laboratories.
“The new 5G Innovation Partnership Zone showcases public-private collaboration at its best,” said Dr. Lisa Brown, director of the Washington State Department of Commerce. “Each of Washington’s IPZs is a unique success story of research, industry and local leadership creating vibrant ecosystems for growth.”
“The new Innovation Partnership Zone in Washington exists as a focal point for global 5G ecosystem development, and engages the breadth of Seattle’s community stakeholders from technology, business, academia and the public sector,” said Professor Sumit Roy, Integrated Systems professor at the University of Washington. “5G networks have the ability to capture information from the environment through sensors and process and transform it into actionable information. The ability to communicate across devices and platforms seamlessly and at very low latency will enable us to connect people and things anywhere, share experiences and intelligence and synthesize new knowledge. We are working to seed the future workforce that will be needed by enterprises, startups and the public sector as 5G-enabled products and services become pervasive.”
The new 5G IPZ joins nine others across the state:
- Urban Center for Innovation Partnerships, Auburn
- Bothell Biomedical Device IPZ, Bothell
- Sports Medicine Innovation Partnership Zone, Issaquah
- Value-Added Agriculture, Skagit Valley
- Aerospace Convergence Zone, Snohomish County
- Thurston Craft Brewing and Distilling IPZ, Thurston County
- Tri-Cities Research District, Port of Benton
- Applied Digital Technology Accelerator, Vancouver/Camas
- Central Washington Data Analytics Technology, Wenatchee
The Innovation Partnership Zones program was created in 2007 to stimulate development of industry clusters and build regional economies. IPZs empower regions to create formal alliances among researchers, private business, local economic development leaders and workforce organizations to collaborate and develop commercially viable technologies. To learn more about the 5G Open Innovation Lab IPZ, visit Commerce’s Media Center.