Mubasher: Volvo Cars and telecom provider China Unicom have partnered on using fifth-generation (5G) mobile network technology for communication between cars and infrastructure in the Asian country.

Under this partnership, the two companies will collaborate in researching, developing, and testing automotive applications of 5G and rising vehicle-to-everything (V2X) technology, according to a statement on Wednesday.

Volvo Cars and China Unicom will examine a wide spectrum of various applications of 5G technology in the communications between vehicles and infrastructure in China, identifying possible enhancements in autonomous driving, safety, sustainability, and customer convenience, and other areas.

Commenting on the partnership, Henrik Green, CEO of Volvo Cars, said, “Volvo has been a leader in realising the potential of connecting our cars to enable new features and services such as detecting and sharing locations of slippery roads between vehicles.”

For his part, Liang Baojun, vice president of China Unicom Group, remarked, “5G will fully enable the development of automatic driving, improve the safety of driving and bring a new experience by building a collaborative service system of ’people, vehicles, roadway, network and cloud’.”

Volvo Cars is looking to roll out 5G connectivity as part of the next generation of Volvos, based on the next generation SPA2 modular vehicle architecture.