‘Pathetic’ performance has left U.S. ‘well behind’ China in 5G race

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‘Pathetic’ performance has left U.S. ‘well behind’ China in 5G race, ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt says

• The U.S. government’s “dithering” has left the country “well behind” China in the race to build out 5G technology, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt said in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.
  
• Schmidt and co-author Graham Allison, a Harvard professor, urged the Biden administration to make 5G a “national priority”, otherwise, “China will own the 5G future.”
  
• The authors said 5G development is key as applications could “advantage a country’s intelligence agencies and enhance its military capabilities.”
  

The U.S. government’s “dithering” has left the country “well behind” China in the race to build out 5G technology, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt said, as he urged Washington to step up investment in the next-generation internet technology.

Writing in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, Schmidt and Graham Allison, a professor of government at Harvard, said that America is “far behind in almost every dimension of 5G while other nations—including China — race ahead.”

The authors urged the Biden administration to make 5G a “national priority.” Otherwise, they said, “China will own the 5G future.”

5G refers to next-generation wireless internet that promises super-fast download speeds. But it could also form the basis for industrial and military applications and form a way for devices to communicate with each other. That’s why it’s seen as a critical technology and one of the reasons China is moving quickly with its own 5G rollout and future applications.

“The step up to real 5G speeds will lead to analogous breakthroughs in autonomous vehicles, virtual-reality applications like the metaverse, and other areas that have yet to be invented,” Schmidt and Allison wrote. “Applications abound that could advantage a country’s intelligence agencies and enhance its military capabilities.”

The pair also accused the U.S. of falling behind in a number of areas. They said that China’s average 5G download speed is significantly faster than the U.S.’s.

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