A 5G research programme backed by T-Mobile US and other big names partnered with the University of Washington to help start-ups develop compatible devices in a bid to expand the market beyond smartphones and PCs.

The 5G Open Innovation Lab will join a programme at the University’s CoMotion Labs, which also incubates early-stage start-ups. In a statement, the groups explained start-ups developing hardware at the facility are likely to focus on medical devices and sensors, among other products.

T-Mobile deployed 5G on 100MHz of 2.5GHz spectrum, mmWave and Massive MIMO at one of CoMotion Labs’ locations: it stated the network delivers peak data rates of more than 1Gb/s.

Francois Baneyx, director of CoMotion Labs, predicted the 5G Open Innovation Lab partnership will “help our entrepreneurs break new ground”.

And Jim Brisimitzis, founder and managing principal of the 5G Open Innovation Lab, noted benefits including provision of the “latest tooling and test equipment” for next-generation products.