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China is looking to achieve commercial application of revolutionary 6G technologies by around 2030, according to experts, as the country intensifies efforts to enhance technical trials to promote the development of the next-generation communications network.
The two-day Global 6G Development Conference was held in the southwestern Chinese city of Chongqing last December, where industry leaders and scholars exchanged their views on performance requirements, key technologies and application scenarios for 6G technologies.
China has been at the forefront of 6G development for several years. The Promotion Group for these technologies was established under the guidance of the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in June 2019, to serve as a leading platform for promoting 6G R&D as well as international cooperation.
Wang Zhiqin, president of the group, told a China Media Group reporter about China’s plans to implement 6G and future application scenarios for these pioneering technologies.
“6G is a new technology that follows the update of 5G, as mobile communications technologies typically evolve every decade. Therefore, looking at 6G, it is expected to be commercially implemented around 2030, with standardization efforts taking place around 2025,” she said.
She added, “6G proposed three application scenarios, namely the integration of communications and cognition, the integration of communications and artificial intelligence, and the creation of the ubiquitous Internet of Things. In the future, 6G technologies aim to connect not only humans, but also many intelligent objects, such as robots and metaverses.” Some industry scenarios that are currently difficult to address will be improved using 6G technologies.”
For many casual observers, the basic impression about 6G is that it will be faster than 5G, but Wang said these technologies could do much more than just improve internet speed.
“After the introduction of 5G technologies, the debate over further improvements in internet speed may raise questions about the necessity of such transformations. In the future, 6G services will focus more on social management and governance, with intelligent systems being particularly targeted,” Wang said.
Current 5G base stations mainly support the transmission and reception of communications signals, but in the 6G era, these base stations are expected to also include more advanced sensing capabilities, and will be able to use radio waves to sense the surrounding environment and the shape and movement of objects.
This progress will not only enhance communications performance, but also create new opportunities such as opening up the “low-altitude economy”, allowing the safe operation of unmanned aerial vehicles for logistics, transportation, tourism and other purposes.
“The current mobile communications network represents a large network system with many base stations,” Wang said. “Based on its basic functions, we hope to integrate more sensing capabilities. For the ‘low-altitude economy’, upgrading existing stations will make it possible to enable sensing, so that we can “Used to manage drone airspace. Updating base stations at traffic intersections can provide insights into traffic flow, as a means of managing it.”
Wang said that at present, 6G development around the world is still in the technical research stage, and there are still no unified standards for 6G networks and their key technologies. However, since 2022, China has been conducting trials of 6G technologies, while research on 6G system structure and technical solutions has also been gradually conducted in the past year, and this will lay a foundation for future progress in 6G technologies.
The promotion group also launched two white papers outlining 6G development at the conference, including a summary on 6G network architecture forecasts and another on wireless system design principles and typical characteristics, providing technical guidance for 6G to upgrade from the Internet of Things to a broader intellectual version.
At the conference, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announced that the country is carrying out a series of 6G-related technical experiments to vigorously promote innovative development. These experiments also aim to accelerate the integrated development of 5G technologies and various new industries and new applications, including extended reality technologies that include augmented and virtual reality, digital twins and advanced robotics.
Source: CGTN Arabic