A pedestrian walks past a 5G promotion board in Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu province. [Photo by Su Yang/For China Daily]

BEIJING - Alibaba's scientific research arm Damo Academy announced Tuesday that it has established the XG Lab to study on next-generation network communication technologies.

The new lab, which currently focuses on the collaborative development of 5G technologies and applications, will hammer at the research of video codec technology and network transmission protocols for the 5G era, as well as formulating relevant standards.

Relying on Alibaba's application ecosystem, the research is expected to be adopted in various scenarios including ultra high definition video, online office, AR/VR, industrial internet, smart logistics and autonomous driving, the academy said.

Zhang Ming, who oversees the intelligent network automation and research at Alibaba Cloud, will serve as the lab's director.

The XG Lab will make future-oriented innovations on network communications technology, applications and models and join hands with industry peers to build an open application ecology, Zhang said.

Founded in 2017, the Damo Academy has established 15 labs for the scientific research of voice, intelligent computing, autonomous driving, quantum computing and other technological frontiers.