MediaTek announced at the 2018 MWC SH Global End Device Summit that its first 5G baseband chipset, Helio M70, will be ready in 2019.

The company also signed the "5G Device Forerunner Initiative" memorandum with
China Mobile, to jointly develop 5G terminal devices and advance the maturity of 5G chipsets and terminals.

The initiative is targeting the 5G test pilot in 2018, pre-commercial deployment in 2019, and commercial rollout in 2020.

MediaTek's first 5G baseband chipset, Helio M70, is designed in compliance with the 3GPP Rel-15 5G new radio (NR) standard interface and includes support for standalone (SA) and non-standalone (NSA) network architectures. It also supports sub-6GHz frequency bands, high power user equipment (HPUE), and other key 5G technologies. Beyond Sub-6GHz, MediaTek's 5G solution will also support mmWave frequency to meet the requirements from different operators.

MediaTek has been an active member of 5G technology development, participating in the standardization of the full 5G feature set, and collaborating with equipment makers in conducting 5G network tests. To date, MediaTek has already achieved the 5Gbps data rate over the sub-6GHz frequency band.

According to "5G Device Forerunner Initiative," 5G solutions from the member companies will be adapted to a variety of end devices, such as smartphone, AR/VR, drone, tablets and more.