What changes will 6G bring by 2030?

We are in the midst of a great digital wave.

Innovation brings people diverse choices and new opportunities like a tide.

In many countries, this change is profoundly affecting every person, every family, every car and every industry, redefining how we work, learn, live and stay healthy.

Today, 5G is being deployed at an accelerated pace around the world, bringing unprecedented possibilities. We are witnessing an era in which 5G will change our lives, innovate industries, and reshape society in all aspects.

Looking ahead to 2030 and beyond, what do we hope the next generation of mobile communications will bring us?

1.1 Evolution of Mobile Communications

Since the 1980s, mobile communication systems have undergone tremendous changes, with a new generation of technology appearing approximately every ten years. However, it usually takes two generations (or 20 years) for the popularization of mainstream mobile network services and the mature application of new frequency bands to mature.

As shown in Figure 1-1, each generation of wireless access networks and core networks adopts new technologies, new design principles, and new architectures, significantly improving their capabilities compared to the previous generation.

The main driving force of 2G and 3G networks comes from mobile users who mainly use voice communications. As the penetration rate of mobile phones and the usage rate of voice services approach saturation, this business model that relies on the number of users has begun to lose growth.

From 3G to 4G, data services have developed rapidly, and mobile broadband has become the dominant service of 4G. In the past 10 years, major advances in mobile communications have had a profound impact on people's lifestyles. For example, smartphones carrying various applications have penetrated into every aspect of life. At this time, the revenue of 4G network operators mainly depends on traffic rather than the number of users, and the increase in per capita traffic consumption has driven business growth.

Thanks to the advancement of 4G technology capabilities, a large number of mobile-oriented application innovations have emerged, completely changing our daily lives. In China, the shift from cash payments to online payments is a strong example. Today, online payment methods such as Alipay, WeChat Pay and Huawei Pay have long become popular payment methods for the public. Whether it is buying daily necessities or paying parking fees, people can easily complete payments without carrying cash. Another example is the rise of social media. Anyone can share pictures and videos with others anytime, anywhere through a smartphone. Social media has become a news carrier, accelerating the spread of information.

This trend of innovation continues in 5G as more and more high-speed, high-bandwidth applications emerge. These applications involve high-definition video, as well as immersive media such as augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and mixed reality (MR). Currently, there are about 3.8 billion smartphones in use worldwide. It is expected that by 2025, this number will reach 8 billion. By then, the number of mobile Internet users will exceed 6.5 billion, of which 80% will use mobile broadband. In addition, the number of AR/VR users will reach 440 million, and 40% of vehicles will be connected to the network.

With the standardization of narrowband Internet of Things, industrial Internet of Things, and Internet of Vehicles, mobile networks have shifted from human connections based on enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB) to Internet of Things based on Ultra-Reliable Low-Latency Communication (URLLC) and massive Machine Type of Communication (mMTC). This shift in turn promotes the digital transformation of enterprises and prepares them for the next wave of economic growth.

5G commercial use initially focused on consumer business, but the evolutionary goal of subsequent versions of the 3GPP 5G standard (such as R16, R17, etc.) is to accelerate vertical applications such as the Internet of Vehicles and the Industrial Internet of Things. In order to achieve different levels of autonomous driving and Industry 4.0 in many companies and industries, the mobile communications field is working closely with major vertical industry alliances such as 5G-ACIA and 5GAA to accelerate the application of mobile technology. It is estimated that level 4 autonomous driving will be achieved after 2025, and the popularization of the Internet of Vehicles will also greatly improve transportation efficiency. Optimized business processes and higher production efficiency will become the key driving force for future GDP growth.

5G has opened the door to the Internet of Everything, and 6G is expected to evolve into a platform for the intelligent connection of everything. Through this platform, mobile networks can connect a large number of smart devices and realize intelligent interconnection. We have reason to believe that the next wave of digitalization will bring more innovations and meet our needs in all aspects. Through artificial intelligence and machine learning, the physical world and the digital world can be connected in real time, allowing people to capture, retrieve and access more information and knowledge in real time, and step into an intelligent and fully connected world. At the same time, technologies such as perception, distributed computing, advanced integrated non-terrestrial networks, and short-range wireless communications will also lay the foundation for future intelligent mobile communication networks.

1.2 Key driving forces

The three key driving forces in Figure 1-2 will give rise to a new generation of intelligent Internet networks. Let’s explain them one by one.

Driving force 1: New applications and new businesses

Currently, operators' business revenue depends on the growth of traffic consumption per user. As shown in Figure 1-3, from 2020 to 2030, the global average mobile traffic consumption per user per month for IoT and non-IoT devices (indicated by the solid line) and the number of users (indicated by the square bars) are expected to continue to grow. The data in the figure comes from the ITU-R M.2370 report.

As can be seen from the figure, the growth of smartphone users has reached saturation in 2020, with an average annual compound growth rate of approximately 6% from 2020 to 2030.

In addition, according to the Global System for Mobile Communications Association (GSMA), the penetration rate of individual mobile users will only increase by 3 percentage points from 2019 to 2025, from 67% to 70%. Despite this, it is expected that within 10 years, the mobile data traffic per mobile broadband (MBB) user will increase 50 times, from 5.3 GB/month in 2020 to 257 GB/month in 2030.

5G platforms have widely supported high-speed, high-bandwidth applications, driving up traffic consumption and stimulating demand for network capacity. In the 6G era, more applications will emerge, and extended reality (XR) cloud services, tactile feedback, and holographic displays are likely to become mainstream applications, covering 360-degree VR movies, AR-assisted remote services, virtual 3D educational travel, tactile telemedicine, and remote operations.

According to Huawei's Global Industry Vision Report, by 2025, the number of head-mounted VR/AR device users will exceed 337 million, and more than 10% of enterprises will use AR/VR technology to conduct business, and these numbers will certainly increase by 2030. With the increase in the number and popularity of cloud XR applications, as well as the improvement in display size, resolution, and refresh rate, the evolution of 5G capabilities may be difficult to meet the speed and latency requirements. The exponential growth of traffic demand per user, the strict requirements for latency and reliability, and the substantial increase in the number of such users will become the main challenges of 6G network design. In addition, many operators have launched unlimited data packages, which has become a mainstream business model and will also bring about an increase in data traffic.

It can also be seen from Figure 1-3 that by 2030, the number of IoT devices will be 13 times more than in 2020, and both enterprise and consumer IoT connections will continue to grow.

In its 2020 Mobile Economy Report, GSMA predicts that by 2024, the volume of enterprise IoT will surpass that of consumer IoT. As a result, AI will become the engine of all kinds of automation, sensing the real-time environment and making real-time decisions using massive amounts of data. In scenarios such as smart homes, smart healthcare, smart cars, smart cities, smart buildings, and smart factories, broadband sensors will be deployed on a large scale to obtain the massive amounts of data required for AI.

Big data is the foundation for the success of machine learning and an important driving force for achieving an order of magnitude increase in 6G network throughput.

In addition, new capabilities such as network perception and non-terrestrial communications will become an integral part of the 6G mobile system, utilizing wireless communication signals and the perception capabilities of massive network nodes and terminal devices themselves to achieve real-time environmental monitoring and imaging of large areas.

High-performance industrial IoT applications also place higher demands on wireless performance in terms of deterministic latency and jitter, and availability and reliability must be guaranteed. For example, time-sensitive command and control, multi-robot motion coordination and collaboration all require high performance. These application scenarios are also the driving force behind 6G's extreme and diverse performance.

Driving force 2: Inclusive intelligence

In the coming decades, the digital economy will continue to be the main driving force of global economic growth, and its growth rate will be much higher than the global economic growth itself. Taking the statistics of 2019 as an example, the growth rate of the digital economy is 3.5 times that of the global economy, reaching 15.6 trillion US dollars, accounting for 19.7% of the global economy. It is expected that this proportion will reach 24.3% by 2025. In terms of investment leverage, in the past 30 years, every additional US$1 in digital economy investment has leveraged US$20 in GDP growth, while the average leverage ratio of non-digital economy investment is only 1:3.

Mobile communications is one of the most dynamic areas in the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) industry. It has a profound impact on people's lives, narrowed the digital divide, and greatly promoted the improvement of overall social productivity and economic growth. By 2024, mobile technology and services are expected to contribute 4.9% (nearly US$5 trillion) to global GDP. The increasing popularity of mobile services will benefit more industries while improving productivity and efficiency.

It is believed that this development trend will continue until 2030 and beyond. As inclusive intelligence becomes an important foundation for future business and economic models, the four key factors shown in Figure 1-4 will drive the paradigm shift in wireless technology and network architecture.

Native AI support: Although 5G introduces a new network function (i.e., network data analysis) in the core network design to achieve intelligence, the current application scope of AI in network operation and maintenance management is still limited. In fact, 5G only regards AI as an OTT (Over-The-Top) service. 6G is different. The design of the end-to-end mobile communication system takes into account the best support for AI and machine learning. AI is not only a basic function, but also achieves optimal efficiency. From an architectural perspective, running distributed AI at the edge can achieve extreme performance, while also solving the data ownership issues of individuals and enterprises and meeting the regulatory requirements of different countries and regions. 6G's "native" AI support aims to provide AI services anytime and anywhere, and continuously improve system performance and user experience through continuous optimization. Therefore, intelligence has reached a truly ubiquitous level, and combined with deeply integrated ICT systems, it provides rich connection, computing and storage resources at the edge, becoming a native attribute of 6G. The corresponding algorithms, neural networks, databases, application programming interfaces (APIs) and other capabilities must also be integrated into the 6G system as part of the network implementation. The 6G network architecture with native AI support will enable the networking of AI, transforming from the current centralized "cloud AI" to the future distributed "connected AI".

Native data privacy protection: Based on the network security capabilities of 5G and previous generations, 6G incorporates privacy protection into key design requirements and principles. It is critical to provide comprehensive privacy protection for 6G networking and data. On the one hand, the two key factors of data ownership and access rights pose challenges to the implementation of privacy protection in network architecture. On the other hand, the network architecture of native AI also puts forward privacy protection requirements for distributed data processing and access capabilities. Although the privacy of data is protected by network and application service providers, it is authorized by the user of the data subject, and the user as the data subject should be allowed to exercise the right to control and operate the data. The design of the next generation system should make privacy protection a top priority rather than an additional feature. At the same time, it should also ensure the data subject's data ownership, enable the control, operation and processing of data under the authorization of the data subject, adapt to data privacy/protection regulations or laws (such as the EU's General Data Protection Regulation), and establish basic guiding principles for future technology design and application.

Native trust: To support various application scenarios and diversified markets, a verifiable and measurable trust system must be customized for 6G. The operation and authorization in 5G and previous generations of communication networks are centralized. In the future, 6G will likely evolve into a model of multi-party participation, co-construction and win-win. This business model requires that the trusted architecture must take into account many factors. An open and inclusive multi-mode trust model will be more suitable for 6G networks and services than the previous single trust model. Therefore, in addition to adapting to future network and business needs, a trustworthy 6G architecture should also consider multiple trust factors such as network security, privacy, resilience, functional safety, and reliability.

Diversified Ecosystem: The three major elements of AI are data, algorithms, and computing power. However, a single enterprise may not have all the capabilities of these three elements and cannot independently complete the digital transformation characterized by intelligent and rapid technological innovation. In this way, building an open, sustainable, and multi-party collaborative ecosystem is an indispensable prerequisite for achieving business success.

Moreover, as 5G capabilities gradually expand, the vertical wireless market is expected to continue to heat up in the 2020s. Players in the ICT field and the operational technology (OT) industry are already discussing how to cooperate and create new sources of revenue. At the beginning of this 6G era, it is very helpful to build a common ICT framework. This framework can provide a global perspective for all industries, thereby accelerating cooperation and integration in the ICT and OT fields. The first wave of 6G commercial use is expected to inject strong momentum into both consumer and vertical industry markets.

Driving force three: social responsibility and sustainable development

Mobile networks have the potential to revolutionize business, education, government, healthcare, agriculture, manufacturing and the environment, as well as the way we interact with each other. Mobile networks are enabling social progress and have the potential to redefine our world.

According to the GSMA report, the United Nations proposed sustainable development goals in 2015 to change the world, and mobile communications are the core cornerstone and important means to achieve this series of goals. The mobile industry plays an important role in all 17 of these goals, and this influence is growing day by day, providing a solid foundation for the digital economy and becoming a catalyst for diversified innovative businesses.

Huawei and the United Nations have analyzed the quantitative benchmarks of the correlation between ICT and the Sustainable Development Goals to measure the extent to which ICT technology development promotes the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. According to the 2019 assessment, the maturity of ICT technology is strongly correlated with the advancement of the Sustainable Development Goals (the correlation is 0.86). As shown in Figure 1-5, Goal 3 (health care) and Goal 4 (quality education) have the highest correlation with ICT technology, indicating that digital technology can maximize the country's governance capabilities in these two areas.

In terms of environmental sustainability, the evolution of ICT technology has a profound impact on the achievement of Goal 7 (affordable and clean energy) and Goal 11 (sustainable development of cities and communities). The world is becoming increasingly urbanized. According to forecasts, by 2030, the urban population will reach 5 billion. These people will occupy only 3% of habitable land, but consume up to 60% to 80% of global energy. With the continuous improvement of energy efficiency per bit, ICT technology will be closer to carbon neutrality, and the rich solutions such as smart grid, smart logistics, and smart industry based on ICT technology will make the future world more energy-efficient and enhance the sustainability of world development.

As of 2020, about 60% of the world's population has access to mobile networks. The other 40% is expected to be connected to 5G and 6G networks through the integration of satellite communications and other technologies. For example, 5G networks have already tried to integrate non-terrestrial access technologies into 5G new air interfaces. Ambitious constellation satellite plans will assemble thousands of ultra-low orbit satellites to enhance ground-to-air communications and may bear fruit in the 6G era. Services, applications and content provided through mobile networks help to expand economic integration and enhance social cohesion. Emerging technologies such as the Internet of Things, big data, artificial intelligence, and machine learning are increasingly integrated into network infrastructure, bringing great potential for profound changes in society and the environment. Due to the high correlation between ICT technology and the Sustainable Development Goals, we must fully consider how the design of 6G communication systems and networks can support the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.

1.3 Overall Vision

Mobile communications have revolutionized the world in just four decades. Today, not only do individuals rely heavily on wireless networks for work and life, but also for the digital transformation of enterprises. As the latest generation of 5G technology is gradually implemented, wireless networks will expand from connecting everyone to connecting everything. This hyperconnectivity makes the full automation of society possible. At the same time, the momentum of wireless innovation is increasing. As pointed out in the book Science, the endless frontier, the exploration of wireless technology will never end.

In the next decade, wireless technology will continue to innovate, artificial intelligence based on machine learning will rise, and digital twins that replicate the physical world into the digital world will also be born. Artificial intelligence and digital twins will form a dual-wheel drive to further promote technological breakthroughs. The resulting 6G network will reshape society and the economy and lay a solid foundation for the future of all things intelligence.

As the next generation of wireless communication technology, 6G will transition from connecting people and things to connecting everything intelligently. As society moves towards intelligent everything, 6G will become a key factor in the popularization of artificial intelligence, bringing intelligence to every person, every family, every car and every enterprise.

6G is like a distributed neural network with communication links, integrating the physical world and the digital world. It is no longer a simple bit transmission pipeline. While connecting everything, it can also sense everything, thus realizing the intelligence of everything. Therefore, 6G will become a network that enables perception and machine learning, with its data center becoming the nerve center, and machine learning spreading throughout the network through communication nodes. This is the picture of the future intelligent digital world of everything.

6G will drive the comprehensive digital transformation of all vertical industries. It provides extreme performance such as multi-T bit rates, sub-millisecond latency, and "seven nines" (99.999 99%) reliability. Compared with 5G, 6G will make a major leap in key performance indicators, and some indicators will be improved by more than an order of magnitude. 6G will provide high-performance universal connectivity with speed and reliability comparable to optical fiber, but everything is achieved wirelessly. Freed from functional and performance limitations, 6G will become a universal platform that supports the creation of any business and application, ultimately achieving "ultimate connectivity"!

6G's disruptive technologies and major innovations will create a significant gap with previous generations.