The French government announced that it has selected five more projects as part of its ongoing programme of financial support for telecom innovation. To date, this programme has awarded grants to 26 projects, amounting to EUR 131 million of public funds out of an overall investment of EUR 434 million. These latest grants add up to EUR 24 million across five projects, out of a total budget of EUR 44 million. More funding will be allocated in two further calls for projects, scheduled later this month and in early March 2022.
The beneficiaries of the five grants are Red Technologies, Qualcomm and three consortia. Red Technologies will use the funding to develop a connectivity platform for 5G NR-U (New Radio in Unlicensed Spectrum), while Qualcomm’s project will be based in Lannion and focus on 5G/6G equipment for 3.5 GHz and 26 GHz network deployments.
The ‘Docte 6G’ consortium, grouping 3DIS, Ericsson, Institut Mines Telecom and XLIM, will work on technical enablers for the future 6G standard. France’s state-owned train company SNCF will collaborate with Airbus, technology research institute b<>com and Kontron on the ‘5G Core’ project, which will explore network hybridization for railway applications.
French B2B operator Celeste and fifteen other partners will participate in the ‘ENE5AI’ consortium to research industry-specific use cases using edge infrastructure, in fields including industry 4.0 and smart grid management. The other members of this project are Afnic, Alter Way, Amarisoft, Atos, Cesames, CityPassenger, CNAM, EDF, Fives, Green Communications, NewGeneration, Suez, Theia Energy, and two universities (Paris Saclay and Sorbonne).
