Nokia, DOCOMO and NTT are collaborating to jointly define and develop key technologies for 6G technology, the future cellular communication standard.
The companies will focus on two proof-of-concepts for emerging 6G technologies: An artificial intelligence (AI) native air interface; and a sub-THz radio access.
The goal is to demonstrate a gain in performance with AI-based 6G air interface compared to a conventional air interface and to show high-data rate beamformed access can be achieved in a high frequency band at 140 GHz.
Nokia and DOCOMO have worked together in the past on previous cellular generations including 3G in the 1990s, 4G in the early 2000s and recently with 5G.
6G testing will begin in DOCOMO and NTT premises in Japan this year and Nokia will begin performing desired tests and measurements as well this year in Stuttgart, Germany.
Why 6G is important
Nokia said 6G will not just build on existing technologies and expand what a network can do, but will further fuse the physical and digital worlds.
To become this, Nokia sees six key technologies as vital components:
- New spectrum technologies
- AI native air interface
- Network as a sensor
- Extreme connectivity
- Cognitive, automated and specialized architectures
- Security and trust
These technologies have the potential to improve deployment flexibility and increase network throughput beyond 5G in the respective spectrum bands and without increasing energy consumption, Nokia said.
Improving on high-rate access will allow for new use cases from 6G including multi-modal mixed-reality telepresence and remote collaboration, massive twinning and collaborating robots.
