Samsung Acquires Analytics Company For 5G Push

Samsung Wednesday unveiled an acquisition meant to help prepare its products to work effectively with high-speed 5G internet.

South Korea-based Samsung said it has acquired Zhilabs, a firm based in Barcelona that specializes in network analytics, with an emphasis on leveraging artificial intelligence technologies.

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The addition of Zhilabs "lays the foundation for Samsung to foster its 5G offerings of automation and network analytics to finely tune the customer experiences in the 5G era," Samsung said in a news release.

Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

So far, telecom giants AT&T and Verizon have introduced initial 5G services, signaling that the next-generation wireless option is becoming a reality.

The 5G rollout holds the potential for ultra-reliable speeds—as much as 1,000 times faster than 4G—along with better capacity and lower latency.

In the Samsung news release, Youngky Kim, the company's head of networks business, said that 5G "will enable unprecedented services attributed to the generation of exponential data traffic, for which automated and intelligent network analytics tools are vital." The Zhilabs acquisition "will help Samsung meet these demands to assure each subscriber receives the best possible service," according to the release.

Zhilabs will remain an independent operation with its own management in place, Samsung said.

Samsung recently said it plans to spend roughly $22 billion over the next three years in key areas of innovation, including 5G, AI and automotive electronics components.

"AI-based automation will play a central role in the introduction of new services in the 5G era, such as industrial Internet of Things (IoT) and connected cars, as carriers will require automated solutions and network analytics beyond what was possible in previous generations," Samsung said in its news release.