Having been all but shut out of the first wave of the mobile computing revolution, Intel Corp. is moving to make sure lightning doesn’t strike twice.

Ahead of next week’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the company today is revealing a sweeping set of products, plans and partnerships that it hopes will position it at the forefront of the coming wave of 5G wireless products and services. The next-generation 5G networks will deliver the higher data bandwidth, faster speeds and lower latency that will be needed to connect emerging technologies like autonomous vehicles, smart cities and the Internet of Things.

The announcements signal Intel’s determination to make up for lost time following its near-total exclusion from the mobile party to this point. Although the company spent billions of dollars trying to get its Atom chips into smartphones, it lost out to rivals such as Qualcomm Inc., Apple and Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. Intel finally gave up the chase last year. It is now formulating a more comprehensive strategy that encompasses the entire wireless market from data centers to devices, leveraging its strengths in core infrastructure.

Intel gave a preview of its plans at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last month with the introduction of a 5G modem designed for use in mobile phones, autonomous cars, servers, base stations, networking equipment, drones, robots and IoT devices. It can deliver data transfer rates many times faster than those of even wired Internet connections.

Partner push

Now Intel is moving the campaign forward with new products and partnerships aimed at building an ecosystem around its technologies and accelerating testing and deployment of 5G services. To that end, the company today announced the launch of its 3rd-Generation Mobile Trial Platform, a development environment that carriers and device makers can use for faster integration and testing of 5G devices and wireless access points.

The company is also showing off another new modem that should help it finally stake a claim in the elusive smartphone market. The Intel XMMTM 7560 Modem is designed specifically for use with LTE Advanced services, which deliver faster speeds and greater capacity than the current generation of LTE products. Intel said the new modem is capable of delivering gigabit LTE speeds in a single package that works anywhere in the world. It’s the first product to be built with Intel’s 14-nanometer chip fabrication process.

Finally, Intel is announcing a new Mobile Edge Computing Portfolio for applications like autonomous cars and IoT that’s designed to bring intelligence to the network edge. So-called “edge computing” is expected to be critical to the success of Industrial IoT and other industries, according to research firm Wikibon, and Intel’s aim is to help communication service providers prepare their networks to support it. The portfolio includes a number of small, low-powered technologies to enable edge computing, including Intel’s Atom C3000 and Xeon D-1500 processors, the 25GbE Intel Ethernet Network Adapter XXV710 and the Intel QuickAssist technology adapter.

“Intel is expanding its portfolio to bring more performance to the network edge with even lower power, small form-factor platforms,” said Sandra Rivera, vice president and general manager of Intel’s Network Platforms Group.

Network of everything

The benefits of a truly global 5G network will be enormous, Intel’s Aicha Evans, senior vice president and general manager of Intel’s Communication and Devices Group, wrote in a blog post today. Its much faster download and upload speeds will be required for the kind of split-second decisions that will be needed for automated factories and autonomous vehicles. Reliability improvements will enable IoT devices to remain in constant contact with servers.

“The big difference with 5G is that when you start to talk about ‘autonomy’ and factories, cars and hospitals thinking for themselves, they will rely on split-second connectivity to do so—with no room for error,” Evans said.

Intel clearly understands that it can’t go it alone in making 5G real. Accordingly, the company announced a number of partnerships intended to explore, test and showcase 5G network and distributed edge technologies.

First up, it’s establishing the 5GI² initiative in partnership with Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson to focus on industrial internet applications and develop pilots for new technologies like augmented and virtual reality in drones. Intel is also working with CSPs to bring their technologies to market with the launch of two new 5G Acceleration Labs in partnership with Nokia OYJ. The labs, which will be located in Murray Hill, New Jersey, and Espoo, Finland, will be used as a testing ground for 5G devices and software, Intel said.

A third partnership with AT&T will see the two companies work together to certify and connect the next-generation 5G devices. Finally, Intel is teaming up with Telefónica S.A. and the 5TONIC open research lab to validate Intel’s FlexRAN software reference platform for current and future radio access networks, or RAN. Intel said virtualized RAN is one of the key technologies necessary to enable the evolution of 5G.

End-to-end strategy

Intel Chief Executive Brian Krzanich told Fortune that the company plans to provide a full suite of products for just about every aspect of the new 5G network, which will interact seamlessly with one another. At CES, Krzanich said he envisions Intel’s mobile chips will connect with other Intel computing chips and sensors and with data centers.

Intel’s strategy is well thought-out and plays to the company’s strengths, said Patrick Moorhead, president and principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy. He explained that Intel has leverage with carriers in particular, many of which are looking to rebuild their clouds and networks with the company’s help. “Now they can walk into a Deutsche Telekom or AT&T from a position of strength and holistic value,” he said, citing the example of Deutsche Telekom AG’s partnerships with Intel and Huawei to build out its public cloud offering.

Despite Intel’s obvious interest in the smartphone and tablet markets, it may have a better chance of leading in IoT applications like smart cities, autonomous cars and virtual reality, where the field is still wide open, Moorhead said. “Of course Intel is driving toward mobility, but I think the other areas are a first priority,” he said.

The biggest obstacle in Intel’s path remains its arch-nemesis, Qualcomm Inc., whose ARM-based chip designs played a big role in blocking Intel out of the smartphone market. Qualcomm is also targeting IoT applications, as evidenced by its massive $47 billion acquisition of NXP Semiconductors N.V. last October.

Intel faces a tough fight, but Moorhead said he believes the company has the strength to prevail. “Intel can leverage its strength in the data center and the carrier network,” Moorhead said.

Images courtesy of Intel