5G is not over yet and 6G is coming? Here is a comprehensive review of the global "6G relay race"!

While governments, enterprises, and research institutions around the world are actively deploying in the 5G field and implementing 5G technology in batches, some research institutions and enterprises have quietly put the research and development of 6G networks on the agenda.

On March 17 this year, the Global 6G Wireless Summit will be held in Finland. Since last year, the summit has brought together experts and scholars from all over the world to discuss the concept of 6G and the demand for 6G in the development of various industries in the world. As the headquarters of Nokia, a world-renowned communications manufacturer, Finland has made Oulu, the largest city in the north, its 6G R&D center, hoping to take advantage of Nokia's industry advantages and the academic advantages of researchers to take the lead in the 6G field. So, what is the difference between 6G and 5G, and what are the core issues to be solved? What important actions have countries taken in this emerging field?

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Finland's first 6G wireless summit, picture from the Internet

Everything is connected, 6G will make people "get rid of" smartphones

At the summit, researchers released “Key Drivers and Research Challenges For 6G Ubiquitous Wireless Intelligence,” which explored the challenges that 6G hopes to solve but that 5G cannot.

The first is speed and spectrum. 5G uses millimeter waves, which are much shorter than the wavelengths used by 4G. The shorter wavelength means that 5G can transmit large amounts of data faster than 4G, and the higher frequencies of 6G will not only provide significantly better throughput, but will also enable faster sampling rates than 5G. Therefore, it can be assumed that 6G will bring faster speeds than 5G.

6G is expected to support speeds of 1 terabyte per second (Tbps), compared to the usual GB-level speeds of 5G. This level of capacity and latency will be unprecedented and will expand the performance and scope of 5G applications to support a growing number of innovative applications in the fields of wireless identification, sensing and imaging.

In addition, in the 5G era, mobile edge computing (MEC) is considered to be a supplement to 5G networks. However, in the 6G era, MEC will be built into all 6G networks. That is, by the time 6G networks are deployed, edge and core computing will be more seamlessly integrated as part of the combined communication/computing infrastructure framework. As 6G technology is put into operation, many advantages will become apparent. For example, 6G will greatly promote the development of new artificial intelligence systems and create many new applications in the field of artificial intelligence.

In terms of applications, researchers believe that 6G will allow people to completely get rid of the use of smartphones. Now most of our data is read and digested using smartphones. In the future, everything will be connected, and every object will be data-driven, with extremely strong data processing capabilities and standard augmented reality interfaces that will pop up when needed to achieve the interconnection of all things. Therefore, the concept of smartphones will gradually disappear, and will be replaced by a new generation of human-computer interaction interfaces.

In the 5G era, the focus of 5G technology is to create a comprehensive perceptual sensory system, allowing people to obtain information and use smart tools more quickly and effectively. With the support of 6G technology, an integrated perceptual nervous system with perception and feedback capabilities will be built. This system will integrate more powerful artificial intelligence capabilities and wireless intelligent perception systems, which will make the entire human-computer interaction system provide intelligent feedback with higher efficiency and accuracy.

For example, with the popularization of 5G networks, the automotive and transportation industries are undergoing new changes. Several standards have emerged, such as Dedicated Short-Range Communications and Vehicle to X. However, a large amount of data needs to be communicated and shared in the extremely short round-trip time when the vehicle is driving at high speed to update the road conditions and danger information in real time, and update the high-precision map. With the bandwidth and speed of the 6G network, V2X technology can be connected and used more effectively.

In terms of smart healthcare, 5G has brought people a variety of IoT health monitoring solutions, such as temperature, heart rate, glucose level, etc. However, the function of the automatic feedback system requires ultra-high security and reliability, as well as a complete communication system. Compared with 5G, 6G will bring a more complete communication infrastructure, helping to achieve further breakthroughs in the field of smart healthcare.

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The concept of object interaction in the 6G era, picture from the Internet

In the 6G era, our relationship with operators will also change. Instead of buying mobile phones from 6G operators, we may buy a base station service, making each house or office building essentially its own communication operator to handle the large number of devices and data connected.

So, what actions have various countries taken in the layout of 6G?

Finland: Setting industry development goals and opening up to international cooperation

In addition to the 6G Wireless Summit held regularly every year, the University of Oulu in Finland has also launched a 6G research program called "6G Flagship". 6G Flagship currently includes experts from universities in Australia, China, Europe and the United States, working together to standardize 6G communication technologies so that these communication technologies can provide "instant, unlimited wireless connections". As with the transition from 4G to 5G, the group is planning to expand the bandwidth to 1,000 times the capacity of 5G by developing "ultra-high frequency" wireless bandwidth technology, breaking through the coverage of 5G.

At present, the main research directions of 6G Flagship include wireless connectivity, devices and circuit technology, distributed computing, and services and applications.

6G Flagship also proposed three main goals, requiring the development of 6G technology while further improving the implementation of 5G technology: 1. Support the industry to further improve 5G technology and find new business models to get the most out of the most advanced technology. 2. Accelerate the digitalization of society. By collaborating with existing ecosystems and promoting new forms, enhance the construction of 5G vertical expertise and further develop the impact of these ecosystems. 3. Develop the basic technologies required to realize 6G, and scientifically verify the developed industry prototypes through basic research.

6G Flagship Official Website

South Korea: Industry-university collaboration, telecom giants set up R&D centers

On the other side of the world, telecom giant Samsung has also set up a new R&D center in southern Seoul, called the Advanced Communication Center. A Samsung official who wished to remain anonymous said that the current telecom technology standards team has been expanded and has begun research on 6G networks.

Samsung officials said it will continue to work on the research and development of next-generation technologies, such as wireless communications in the terahertz range, advanced components using RF materials, and the fusion of telecommunications and computing, and it expects them to be 100 times faster than 4G LTE and 5 times faster than 5G.

Meanwhile, other Korean telecom giants have also started to lay out their plans in the 6G field: LG Electronics announced a strategy to lead the global standardization of 6G and create new business opportunities through research centers, and joined hands with the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) to establish the LGE-KAIST 6G Research Center. The center is located at the KAIST Institute in Yucheng District, Daejeon, South Korea. KT Corp, the second largest mobile operator in the country, also signed an agreement with Seoul National University (SNU) to cooperate in 6G research.

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LG and KAIST signed a cooperation agreement, picture from the Internet

China: Government leads R&D work, Huawei and ZTE set up research departments

China's Ministry of Science and Technology announced in November 2019 that it would promote the development of 6G technology, and set up a 6G technology development promotion working group and an overall expert group. The promotion working group is composed of relevant government departments and is responsible for promoting the implementation of 6G technology development. The overall expert group is composed of 37 experts from universities, research institutes and enterprises, and is mainly responsible for proposing 6G technology research layout suggestions and technical demonstrations, and providing consultation and suggestions for major decisions.

China's telecom giant Huawei also responded to the country's call, announcing that Huawei has launched research on 6G mobile networks in Canada and has started negotiations with researchers from several Canadian universities. Ren Zhengfei also expressed his views on 6G technology in a recent public meeting: "6G is mainly about wider bandwidth, but insufficient coverage. It is millimeter wave and has a relatively short coverage distance. This depends on theoretical breakthroughs and technological breakthroughs in communication technology for 6G to become practical. We estimate that it will take 10 years." Regarding the imperfect 6G technology, Ren Zhengfei also said that Huawei has adopted a strategy of advancing 5G and 6G at the same time. At the same time, ZTE has also established an advanced technology group, and currently there are 100 to 200 researchers working hard to develop beyond 5G technology.

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Huawei Canada R&D Center, picture from the Internet

US: The government opens up 6G spectrum, and telecom giants and universities conduct preliminary tests

In the United States, although the government has not announced an official 6G R&D plan, the US government attaches great importance to the R&D of 6G. After a unanimous vote, the FCC is opening up the "terahertz wave" spectrum for experimental purposes, ranging from approximately 95 gigahertz (GHz) to 3 terahertz (THz), providing a legal way for companies to test and sell wireless devices with technologies above 5G.

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FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, picture from the Internet

Some companies and research institutions have already started preliminary research and development in the field of 6G. For example, at Virginia Tech Bradley, the team of Walid Saad, an associate professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, has published a white paper titled "A Vision for 6G Wireless Systems: Applications, Trends, Technologies, and Open Research Issues." Saad believes that the development of each generation of communication systems requires ten years of research, and early vision is important to promote research. Saad is working with international researchers to integrate artificial intelligence concepts between its protocol stack and devices to make 6G systems intelligent and self-regulating and maintaining functions.

Telecom giants have also begun to make their first moves in the 6G space, such as test instrument manufacturer Tektronix, IEMN (a French research laboratory), and Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT), which jointly announced the development of a 100 Gbps “wireless fiber” solution. Sony, NTT, and Intel have also announced a partnership to work together on the development of 6G mobile network technology, which is expected to be launched around 2030.

Speed ​​and new applications: 6G leads industrial change

In general, 6G will have a great impact on the industry: First, higher frequencies will enable faster sampling rates, thus greatly improving the accuracy and speed of sensing, imaging, and positioning. On the other hand, 6G can provide the communication and data collection means necessary to accumulate information, which can not only further improve the government's public security and asset protection solutions in many industries, such as threat and health monitoring, feature and facial recognition, law enforcement, and social credit systems, but also promote the further development of related fields such as artificial intelligence and high-performance computing (HPC).

According to various countries and research institutions, 6G is expected to be commercially available in 2030. The iteration time of mobile communication technology is gradually shortening. As described by Yuval Noah Harari, the author of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, the boundaries between people and things will gradually disappear, and the world will become an interconnected entity driven by data. So can 6G bring us such a new data world? We will have to wait and see.