North China's Shanxi province is focusing on the roll out of 5G base stations and infrastructure for the long-term development of the province, according to local officials. 

They said that as of the end of July, a cumulative total of 12,000 base stations had been built in Shanxi, with 5G base stations covering the main urban areas of all 117 counties across the province. 

In addition, the municipal governments of 11 cities in the province have published a list of free access to social public resources -- such as public hospitals, schools, government office buildings -- for local telecommunications operators to construct 5G infrastructure. 

Officials said that by the end of July, 1,729 public resources sites had been opened.

Moreover, to boost the province's transformation and development, local telecommunications operators have increased 5G application innovations in various industries -- bringing more possibilities to the industrial internet, intelligent mining, and smart medical care. 

The Shanxi branch of China Unicom, one of three major Chinese teleco giants, has for example cooperated with Taiyuan Iron and Steel Group Co, Shanxi Coking Coal Group and Geely Auto Group on developing 5G-based intelligent manufacturing and mining projects and introduced several 5G tech applications in different situations and conditions.

Meanwhile, the Shanxi branch of China Mobile took the lead in completing the research and development of the country's first 5G base station dedicated to an underground coal mine, as well as building the country's first underground 5G test network. 

The Shanxi branch of China Telecom and Changzhi Guoxin Big Data Co jointly built the Changzhi Industrial Internet Platform which achieved industrial data collection, enterprise big data analysis, optimization of energy consumption monitoring, as well as various types of cloud resource services.