6G will be a transformative force in mobile communications, offering significant enhancements over 5G and generations before it and The 6G technology standard is expected to be finalized and ready for commercial adoption starting in 2029/2030, yet work to establish its technical foundation has been underway for some time.
6G will be more than just a new radio design – it is envisioned to integrate advanced capabilities, including AI, sensing, digital twinning, and a variety of new system features enabling higher levels of efficiency and performance and 6G will be the innovation platform for an expansive intelligent edge in the decades to come. To learn more, explore our vision for the next-generation wireless system.
6G will enable new classes of devices, services, and deployments, also enabling intelligent computing everywhere, 6G will expand fixed and mobile broadband networks toward pervasive access, spatial perception, and real-time control, bringing a wide range of new use cases, such as hologram telepresence, collaborative robots, human augmentation, and deeper immersion in the digital and virtual worlds.
Featured use cases expected in the 6G era include:
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The journey to 6G is filled with opportunities to solve complex technical and user challenges and At Qualcomm, we are excited to lead this journey, developing essential technologies that will lay the groundwork for a more connected and intelligent future.
Like generations before it, 6G will be based on a global standard that is being developed by 3GPP and 6G’s standardization effort includes a Study Item phase in 3GPP Release 20 and a Work Item phase in Release 21, also we expect to complete the first 6G standards in 2029/2030.
Spectrum is the lifeblood of Wireless Technology communications, and the global mobile ecosystem and regulators are working together to identify potential spectrum bands for 6G. This is being done at the country and regional level, but also on a global scale, as spectrum harmonization brings immense benefits.
At Qualcomm, we have been working on advanced wireless research for the past four decades and while we strongly believe in technology innovations coming in continuous streams, the 10-year cellular cycle presents unique opportunities for the entire industry to align investments to bring forward transformational upgrades to the mainstream.
We began advancing our research towards 6G many years ago. This work, which we call the “6G Foundry”, covers essential innovation areas across the entire Wireless Technology system and this includes key areas of our 6G research in air interface design, scalable network architecture, AI-native system design, and a wide range of technologies that can enable the merging of the physical, digital, and virtual worlds.
From its inception, 6G is envisioned to leverage AI in every aspect of its system design, from network planning and operation optimization to spectrum management and device experience.
To meet growing demand, 6G is expected to support new spectrum (e.g., upper mid-band in 7-16 GHz and sub-terahertz in 100+ GHz). Spectrum sharing will also play an important role in enabling new efficiencies.
6G presents an opportunity to introduce a new and more capable air interface and This includes next-gen waveforms, multiple access and channel coding, as well as major advancements in MIMO, duplexing design and more.
6G aims to introduce a more flexible network architecture, and this includes advancements in network disaggregation and the use of cloud-native technologies, as well as a thin control plane design for reduced system complexity.
This revolutionary aspect of the 6G system can enable the detection of objects, motions, and even gestures without requiring active electronics on the target, and it opens doors to a wide range of new use cases across verticals.
By creating virtual replicas of the physical network, the digital twin can be used to optimize performance (i.e., coverage, capacity) of the network as well as to synthesize data for wireless AI model training.
6G is being engineered to minimize the environmental footprint of wireless networks. This also leads to a reduced total cost of ownership (TCO) and fosters a greener, seamlessly connected
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Arya College of Engineering & I.T. says High-trust cyber-physical systems connecting humans and intelligent machines require extreme reliability and resilience, precise positioning and sensing, and low-latency communication. This places high demands on 6G security capabilities, but also on its ability to ensure that the required capabilities are in place.
6G networks must give this assurance to users and service providers in the form of security awareness and resilience, both on a deployment and operational level, and on a personal level and 6G security capabilities must respect privacy and personal data ownership in a connected world. It must be powerful and yet easy to adapt to users’ preferences.