Macau-based MTel Telecommunication Company Limited hosted an unveiling ceremony yesterday about its new joint laboratory with Yongjiang Laboratory (Y-LAB) and Wuhan Yangtze Optical Technology Co. Ltd. (YOTC).
MTel Chairman and CEO Michael Choi Tak Meng said in his speech at the ceremony that the laboratory was set to boost development in Macau’s high-tech industries.
The ceremony was held at Macau Tower in Sai Van.
According to Choi, the laboratory marks a milestone in tripartite collaborative innovation. It will focus on areas such as optical communication and next-generation information networks, electronic information materials and devices, aiming to build a scientific and technological innovation platform that integrates research and development, commercialisation, and talent cultivation, he said.
MTel Chairman and CEO Michael Choi Tak Meng speaks to reporters at Macau Tower in Sai Van yesterday. – Photo: Armindo Neves
4 key plans
Choi outlined the four key plans during the ceremony – 1) to deeply understand and address the needs of Macau, driving technology to serve urban development and improve people’s livelihoods; 2) to build an open and collaborative platform to attract global scientific and technological innovation resources, accelerating the validation and transformation of technologies; 3) to focus on the commercialisation of research outcomes by establishing a seamless pipeline from research and development to market application, fostering interdisciplinary talent, and advancing products such as smart healthcare solutions; 4) to promote regional integration by deepening collaboration with the Chinese mainland, leveraging Macau’s role as a platform between China and Portuguese-speaking countries, and supporting Macau’s integration into the national development strategy.
The laboratory has already received support from the Ministry of Science and Technology in Beijing and Macau’s Science and Technology Development Fund (FDCT), and its primary objective is the research and development of next-generation high-speed communication network access technologies, Choi said.
Y-LAB Prof. Mi Xiaoyu said in a speech that the laboratory will focus on core critical technologies and talent cultivation.
YOTC Prof. Yang Zhanbing emphasised, on the other hand, that Wuhan Yangtze Optical Technology Co. Ltd. will contribute core optical communication technologies and research and development momentum to the laboratory.
Macau University of Science and Technology (MUST) Faculty of Innovation Engineering Dean Prof. Qiao Sun said she hopes that the laboratory will serve as a platform to drive the transformation of scientific and technological achievements and foster talent development.
Choi told reporters after the ceremony that the laboratory is located at MTel’s headquarters on Rua de Afonso de Albuquerque (亞豐素街). In the future, Choi said, the laboratory will be developed into a facility that integrates data centre and computing power centre capabilities, supporting the research and development of cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence. The goal is to establish a “small yet sophisticated” demonstration hub for technological innovation in Macau, Choi said.
Choi pointed out that the laboratory plans to increase network access speeds to 100 gigabytes* by the end of this year and further to 200 gigabyte next year. Choi said that the measure aims to achieve ultra-low latency** and low-cost transmission, providing infrastructure support for applications such as smart cities and smart healthcare. Choi cited an example: in the future, smart bandages embedded with sensors could enable remote monitoring of wound conditions.
*Gigabyte (GB), a unit of digital information storage equal to 1 billion bytes or 1,024 megabytes in base-2 binary, it’s a common measure for the capacity of storage devices (like hard drives, USB drives) and the size of files (like movies, software, games). – DeepSeek
**In computer science, latency refers to the delay between the initiation of a request for data and the beginning of the actual data transfer or the receipt of the response. It is a measure of the time taken for data to travel from the source to the destination and can significantly impact system performance, especially in network communications, storage, or processing tasks.
