As part of its plan to invest in 5G technology, Chinese telecommunications giant ZTE announced that it will hire about 800 new engineers in China, Europe and the United States.

The hiring will take place as the company sets aside US$400 million to develop 5G technology, which, it said, is 1,000-times more powerful than the current 4G technology.

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ZTE, however, did not provide further details about its hiring of additional 800 engineers in China, Europe and the United States but sources said the hiring is needed as the company steps up investment in 5G.

ZTE’s chief scientist, Dr. Xiang Jiying, said most of the 5G technology is already technically feasible today but the company does not expect 5G to start rolling until 2020.

ZTE and other players, such as Huawei and Ericsson, are continuing the discussions on the various standards that will be adopted for the 5G technology.

Dr Xiang stressed that 4G has long been a history because it was not optimized for the Internet of Things and that investing in 5G technology will surely produce benefits for ZTE.

“Most of the 5G technology is already technically feasible today, but the biggest challenge is implementation. The process of setting the standard can be very slow. Discussions about how to define the standard alone can take over a year,” Xiang said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal.

“Ericsson wants one thing, Huawei wants another and we want something else. After that, chipset design can take a year or two, and it can only be developed after there is an agreement on standards. It also takes time for carriers to upgrade their base stations,” he added.

ZTE started its research in 2012, where it spent US$200 million on research and development for both 5G and pre-5G technologies.

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