Singtel lined up another private network customer, with Hyundai Motor Group selecting the operator’s 5G campus infrastructure with mobile edge core (MEC) for a local innovation centre.

Hong Bum Jung, CEO of Hyundai’s innovation centre, noted in a joint statement the facility will feature the group’s first deployment of a 5G network for vehicle manufacturing, with plans to deploy cloud-based centralised robot management.

He added by creating a digital-twin of a real factory, Hyundai would be able to “test-run a factory virtually”, allowing it to “calculate the optimised plant operation and enable plant managers to solve problems without having to physically visit the plant”.

The company aims to introduce new forms of mobility products and services in Singapore, with the site serving as a testbed for human-centred intelligent manufacturing, Hyundai stated.

Singtel Enterprise Business MD Lim Seng Kong said its “5G network and MEC solutions will overcome the performance limitations of Wi-Fi to deliver the promise of digital twins and eventually metaverse for advanced manufacturing operations”.

The operator stated its “all-in-one platform for managing 5G networks, edge computing management and services orchestration, will enable the factory to manage and analyse the manufacturing process and performance of the networks” in real time.

Last month, US chipmaker Micron Technology appointed Singtel to deploy a mmWave 5G network with a localised edge core at its flash memory plant in the city-state.