At the IEEE PIMRC conference held on September 4, 2024, Dr. Tong Wen, Huawei Wireless CTO, presented his views on the development direction of the 6G industry. Titled “The Architectural Framework for A-RAN and A-Core”, Dr. Tong Wen noted “6G will not be a simple upgrade of 5G - it should integrate AI revolution for the past 20 months, so to reshape the wireless industry and take it to the next height.”
5G has been a success and 6G is on track, said Dr. Tong Wen, while sharing the timetable of 6G standard. The first 6G standard discussions will start in 3GPP in 2025 and the first version of 6G standard will be frozen in 2030. In a nutshell, after 6 years, there will be a global 6G standard and the mobile industry ecosystem will rally to go to market.
However, 6G is a long-term game plan, its technology and standard should support the innovations during the future decade from 2030 to 2040. From the investment point of view, 6G technology also should have a long-shelf time, which is not a replicate of 5G technology, but an incremental generation of wireless.
At the conference, Dr Tong Wen elaborated on 6G Standardization Direction and Innovations Driving 6G Standardization.
First, 6G is a true generational technology disruption.
Currently, the AI revolution is profoundly changing every aspect of our work and life, so 6G for sure should consider the emerging AI revolution to be ongoing, now and in the future. Therefore, we need to re-examine the new possibilities and potential for the mobile industry for the timeframe of 2030 and beyond. Therefore, 6G standard, key technologies, and network architecture should be redefined based on application scenarios and requirements from 2030 to 2040.
The 6G standard needs to adopt disruptive technologies to enable a true generational capability improvement. Specifically, in terms of core network, RAN, and terminals, the day-one 3GPP 6G standard must have the original technologies and major air interface features. This will drastically improve network performance and energy savings, improve user experience at least tenfold and as much as thirty-fold, and deliver three times more intrinsic spectral efficiency and energy efficiency.
In summary, 6G is not a continuation or upgrade of 5G technologies, nor is it another way to implement 5G. Instead, 6G is a new generation of capabilities that should generate new values for the consumers.
Second, 6G should embrace the AI revolution with an OOM Quantum Leap
Twenty years ago, the Internet was an enabler of the latest technology. Wireless industry embraced the Internet and achieved great business success. Today, AI is becoming the enabler of the latest technologies. There is no doubt that 6G should embrace AI, so the 3GPP 6G standardization process needs to fully digest the disruptive changes of AI technologies.
- On the core network side, this will involve using Agentic-AI-based technology to re-architect 6G-Core to achieve full automation for generation, operation, and maintenance. 6G-Core is a new and beyond 5G SBA to support the primitive capabilities of 6G AI, Sensing and NTN.
- On the RAN side, AGI and embodiment-AI will be the mainstream AI applications in 2030-2040. The industry needs to further study AGI and embodiment-AI, not just the current Generative-AI. Therefore, it is too early to draw conclusions on the 6G air interface design about how to support 6G AI.
- On the UE side, 6G UEs must support the "Full AI" function. The 6G transformation from 5G technologies will be difficult if 6G UE can not adapt to the rapid development of AI and sensing capabilities from 2030 to 2040.
Third, 6G architecture should be a continuous innovation to create a bigger market
5G has proven its market success in the past years, and 5G technology is evolving into 5G-Advanced. In the next five years or more, 5G and 5G-Advanced can meet customer requirements and will continue to deliver value to operators and protect their 5G investment.
Therefore, 6G technologies should not overlap with and duplicate 5G, nor compete with the 5G market space and waste operators' investment. Instead, 6G technologies should create innovative industry values and expand the market space for the mobile industry.
Simply reusing 5G network architecture without generational and fundamental innovation will limit the mobile industry’s aspiration and imagination to dive into the innovation promised by the 6G era. In particular, reusing the 5G core network will hinder innovation in AI.
Fourth, 6G user device calls for a breakthrough
The breakthrough of terminal technologies is the key factor - if not the only one - for mobile device evolution. In 2007, the iPhone enabled the development of the mobile broadband industry through its phenomenal market success. It is hard to imagine that smartphones will continue to drive the mobile industry beyond 2030.
Therefore, new breakthroughs must be made in terminal technologies in 6G, and 6G systems must be prepared for terminals in the 6G era.
To conclude, Dr. Tong Wen further clarified the relationship between 5G and 6G: “6G must be an innovative generational technology, instead of a simple extension of 5G technology. Now, 5G deployment is rolling out globally, and the current market demand and requirement can be met by 5G-Adavanced. This will protect the investment of operators, and continue to expand the market space. To duplicate 5G technologies for 6G, is essentially a pseudo-6G technology, which is not the best use of investment for operators. We should not underestimate the capabilities of 5G-Advanced for current market, and we should not underestimate the potential of 6G.”
Dr. Tong Wen is the CTO of Huawei Wireless.
