The new R&D center will support ZTE's partnerships with operators and academic institutions in Japan for the deployment of ZTE's proprietary Pre5G technologies and ongoing research into 4G and 5G mobile communications. The opening ceremony was officiated by senior executives, including Shi Lirong, President and CEO of ZTE; Zhang Renjun, Senior Vice President of ZTE; and Zhang Shumin, Head of ZTE Mobile Devices Asia Pacific. With this new opening, ZTE now operates 20 R&D centers across Asia, North America, and Europe.
 
"ZTE's global research into 5G technology will be strengthened by the new R&D center in Japan," said Mr. Shi. "Japan is home to many of ZTE's most important customers, and we will continue to increase our investment in this important market. The new R&D center will allow ZTE to recruit top local talent to join our research into cutting-edge technologies."
 
In July, ZTE announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with SoftBank Corp. to collaborate on research and development of pre-5G mobile communications network technologies. According to the agreement, ZTE and SoftBank agreed to cooperate on R&D, evaluation, and verification of mobile communications solutions based on ZTE's pre-5G technology, including massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) technology.
 
5G research is key to ZTE's strategy to become a global leader in developing next-generation network technologies. In June 2014, ZTE was the first vendor to propose the Pre5G concept, and the company launched the Pre5G base station by integrating the baseband unit (BBU) and remote radio unit (RRU) technology at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in March 2015, enabling carriers to emulate the behavior of future 5G networks on existing 4G LTE network infrastructure.

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