A final virtual consortium meeting celebrated the successful conclusion of the MK:5G project, a flagship city initiative centred around the deployment of 5G technologies in Milton Keynes. In particular, MK:5G has deployed a dedicated 5G infrastructure for the city and an associated Data Exchange facility. KMi’s contribution to the project centers on the design and implementation of a novel open-source technology, the API Factory, which defines a back-end component for the Data Exchange. The API Factory supports an efficient consumption and delivery of the large-scale IoT data streams made possible by 5G technologies. The API Factory is just one of the components of the MK Data Factory suite of technologies, which forms part of the MK Data Hub. The latter was developed by a joint KMi/BT team within the context of the MK Smart project and has since been used in a variety of contexts, including SME Innovation (CityLABS), Autonomous Robots (SciRoc), and Cultural Heritage Data Infrastructures (SPICE).

The 5G mobile network and data infrastructure, designed exclusively for research and development purposes, currently covers a large part of the Milton Keynes area, including Central Milton Keynes (CMK), MK Stadium, Bletchley & CMK rail stations, the Hospital, Universities, essential junctions on the M1, and a number of rural communities. Testbed applications spanned across three core themes: Mobility, Health & Wellbeing, and Energy, producing extensive datasets available through the Data Exchange. MK:5G was led by Milton Keynes Council and was funded by the South East Midlands Local Enterprise Partnership (SEMLEP). Consortium partners are: BT, CityFibre, TechMahindra, The Open University, Satellite Applications Catapult and the Connected Places Catapult.