Stefan Mileschin

One of the key verticals in the integration of 5G we are told is in the industrial space – having machines on a shop floor communicate wireless to a central control hub with ultra-low latency or with ultra-high bandwidth. Automation and control are two elements that these designs can bring, which essentially falls under the ‘Internet of Things’ heading.

To that end, GIGABYTE’s Industrial PC division (GIGAIPC) has developed its first 5G certified PC for industrial use cases. As an added bonus, it is a fanless design, equipped with a Core i3-7100U and with space for up to 32 GB of DDR4. The QBiX Pro (QBiX-Pro-KBLB7100HD-A1) has passed verification field tests with Chunghwa Telecom’s 5G network earlier this year, and comes with a number of key industrial features, such as COM header support, dual Ethernet, video outputs, and plenty of USB. GIGAIPC is aiming its new QBiX Pro at automation, transportation, smart retail, medical, edge computing, and essentially anything IoT that requires high-reliability and 5G connectivity in the field.

5G is provided by an on-board PCIe solution, which GIGAIPC hasn’t cited however we have reached out to get this information. It is very likely to be a combination Qualcomm RF and front-end solution for sub 6 GHz, given the Chunghwa verification, which is attached through an onboard M.2 slot. If previous M.2 solutions are anything to go by, these 5G M.2 modules are wider than the standard M.2 widths we see for storage drives.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/15913...m-gigabyte-ipc