NEW YORK CITY -- Brooklyn 5G Summit 2016 -- Toyota is hoping to deploy 5G mobile technology in its cars as soon as 2020, a researcher at the company told Light Reading here Wednesday.

The Brooklyn 5G Summit gets started properly Thursday but the event showed off exhibits and had a meet and greet on Wednesday. One thing was clear from the get-go: 5G has people in the communications industry, and in the wider world, looking beyond the smartphone.

There's going to be plenty of talk during the next few days about how 5G can expand the mobile universe from cars, to robots, to health applications and further afield.

Gaurav Bansal, senior researcher at Toyota's InfoTechnology USA R&D center in Mountain View, Calif., is ready for 5G. He is hoping there will be enough 5G network infrastructure deployed in 2020 to allow the car maker to roll out its initial 5G-ready cars.

5G will move beyond the smartphone and tablet to bring mobile technology to many more arenas, Bansal suggests. "Maybe in the next ten years will see the development of the smart car," Bansal said.

Toyota's initial 5G application will be sending data to central IT systems via a sensor network.

— Dan Jones, Mobile Editor, Light Reading