Secure 5G: Building a more flexible, secure and affordable supply chain for future 5G

The Secure 5G project set out to transform how next-generation mobile networks are developed and deployed in the UK.

As 5G Open RAN technology gains momentum, there is growing demand for flexible, cost-effective, and sovereign alternatives to traditional telecoms infrastructure. This project brought together CSA Catapult, Lime Microsystems, Slipstream Design, and Arqit to create a scalable, secure, and energy-efficient 5G base station that could be rapidly deployed in both private and public network environments.

With funding of £1.7m over 18 months, the project helped unlock a new UK supply chain and delivered a fully commercial, off-the-shelf 5G “base station in a box”.

Traditional 5G platforms are often limited by narrow frequency bands, high cost, proprietary designs, and infrastructure requirements that exclude smaller operators.

With the spectrum now being opened up to 10GHz, there was an urgent need for platforms that could support a wider bandwidth while still delivering the high power and energy efficiency demanded by dense network environments.

At the same time, the UK faced the challenge of creating a secure and sovereign telecoms ecosystem, reducing reliance on foreign suppliers and increasing domestic technical capability in both radio frequency (RF) design and post-quantum encryption.