An employee explains 5G technology at a 5G experience zone located in downtown Shanghai. (photo: IC)

Amid visible signs of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic waning across China, Shanghai is stepping up efforts to build the city into a global information and communication hub, by constructing and developing its new infrastructure.

5G network, as a key element of this new infrastructure, has its coverage across Shanghai's all 16 districts, local authorities said.

This year Shanghai will invest 10 billion yuan ($1.41 billion) to further improve local 5G network coverage. It plans to build 12,000 outdoor base stations and 32,000 indoor small base stations across the city by 2020, said Zhang Jianming, deputy director of Shanghai Municipal Economic and Information Commission.

With the improved 5G coverage, the city's average download speed will surpass 200 megabytes per second (MBps), and download speeds at airports, large business areas and the National Exhibition and Convention Center are expected to exceed  500 MBps, Zhang said at a press conference on Thursday.

Shanghai plans to invest a total of 27 billion yuan - of which 6 billion yuan is government investment - in its 48 key infrastructure projects in the next three years, said Ma Chunlei, head of the city's development and reform commission.

This three-year project includes building thousands of additional 5G base stations, constructing over 100 unmanned factories and production lines, building 100,000 new electric vehicle charging piles, and promoting 150,000 local enterprises to move online.

New infrastructure refers to digital facilities, including 5G base stations, vehicle charging stations, big data centers, artificial intelligence (AI) and industrial internet.