A car enabled by Huawei displayed at Auto Shanghai 2019. Photo: IC

China's Huawei Technologies launched on Monday what it said was the world's first 5G communications hardware for the automotive industry, a sign of its growing ambition to become a key supplier to the sector for autonomous-driving technology.

Huawei said in a statement that the MH5000 module is based on the Balong 5000 5G chip, which it launched in January. "Based on this chip, Huawei has developed the world's first 5G car module with high speed and high quality," it said.

It launched the module at the Shanghai Auto Show, which began last week and run until Thursday.

"As an important communication product for future intelligent car transportation, this 5G car module will promote the automotive industry to move toward the 5G era," Huawei said.

It said the module will aid its plans to start commercializing 5G network technology for the automotive sector in the second half of this year.

Huawei has in recent years been testing technology for intelligent connected cars in cities such as Shanghai, Shenzhen in South China's Guangdong Province and Wuxi in East China's Jiangsu Province and has signed cooperation deals with several  car producers including FAW, Dongfeng and Changan.

The firm, which is also the world's biggest telecoms equipment maker, is striving to lead the global race for next-generation 5G networks but has come under increasing scrutiny from the US, which alleges that its equipment could be used for espionage. Huawei has repeatedly denied the allegation.