China Telecom will invest 18 billion yuan (US$2.64 billion) in Shanghai in three years on 5G network construction and broadband network upgrade.

China Telecom, one of the top three national carriers in China, signed an agreement with the Shanghai government to establish "next-generation information technology highland" in the city.

Under the agreement, China Telecom will invest 18 billion yuan within three years in Shanghai. It plans to build 20,000 5G outdoor base stations to cover the whole city by 2020.

It will also improve family broadband bandwidth to 1 gigabyte per second, five to 10 times compared with current broadband services.

Ke Ruiwen, China Telecom's chairman, and Wu Qing, vice mayor of Shanghai, were present to announce the agreement.

China will officially debut 5G services later this year, which is the next-generation mobile communications technology offering 20- to 50-time faster speed compared with 4G.

Shanghai welcomes China Telecom to invest in the city to boost high technologies like artificial intelligence and 5G.

At present, Shanghai has more than 2,000 5G base stations including 5G coverage in railway stations and sports stadiums, Wu said.

China Telecom also signed with partners Huawei, Tencent, ZTE, 360, AsiaInfo and iQiyi on smart home construction.

The carrier has set up its national smart home business center in Shanghai, covering next-generation family broadband system and cloud services.

The carrier, also the biggest fixed-line operator in China, signed deals with nine Shanghai-based manufacture and energy giants yesterday on 5G and industrial Internet.

It will help them to speed up digital transformation, the firms said.

China Telecom also displayed the latest 5G and AI development and innovation, covering smart manufacture, urban management, smart home and digital health care.

One of the highlights was a smart garbage classification and recycling system, which can automatically define the kind of garbage and calculate the value of it.

Until May, China Telecom had 170 million family broadband users, ranking it the No. 1 carrier in the country.