The government of Brazil will allocate $36 million for research centers to develop 5G, 6G and O-RAN tech

Brazil’s Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation and local state-run research and industrial innovation company Embrapii announced the investment of BRL180 million ($36 million) in three institutions selected to form centers for competence in the development of research in 5G and 6G, immersive technologies applied to virtual environments and Open RAN.

The Brazilian government said that the three selected organizations are the Telecommunications Research and Development Center (CPQD), the National Telecommunications Institute (Inatel) and the Center of Excellence in Artificial Intelligence at the Federal University of Goiás (CEIA-UFG).

Each of the three competence centers will receive an investment of BRL 60 million from the PPI IoT/Manufacturing 4.0 Priority Program, which will be applied over a period of 42 months in actions that combine expansion and strengthening of scientific and technological competence in research, development and innovation; training and qualification of human resources and attraction and creation of startups.

“The competence centers will build knowledge and create points of reference for research in areas of frontier technologies, whose development is strategic for the country’s positioning in the world economy. We want to put Brazil once and for all on the map of this new innovation ecosystem and in a prominent position for research,” said Interim President of Embrapii Igor Nazareth.

The Center for Research and Development in Telecommunications (CPQD) will work on the theme of Open RAN, which focuses on the development of open technologies for telecommunications network infrastructure. “CPQD’s mission is to always bring positive results to our country, investing in the development of innovative resources for the telecommunications sector. As a center of competence, we will pass on our learning and the best possible results to the industry and society as a whole. It is time to present solutions,” said the president of CPQD, Sebastião Sahão Júnior.

Meanwhile, the National Telecommunications Institute (Inatel) will be the center of competence in the areas of 5G and 6G. Inatel will work on the continuity of the development of 5G research and, in parallel, on the development of norms and standards for future 6G systems.

CEIA-UFG was selected for the competence center for immersive technologies applied to virtual worlds. The center will carry out research works on technologies that aim to simulate the physical world through virtual reality.