As the arrival of 5G has been the hot topic for the past year or so, Huawei has already begun its pre-research on 6G in Canada
Huawei isn’t the only company which has already started researching on the 6th generation of mobile networks. Back in June, Samsung announced the launch of a new research center dedicated to initial work on 6G. It followed the formation of the Advanced Communications Research Center under Samsung Research.
LG is also working on 6G. The Korean firm, in collaboration with the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), has opened a research center dedicated to the standard. China, meanwhile, aims to build a test 6G network for 2020.
Earlier this year, the Finnish government injected EU 25 million into an eight-year 6G research project called "6Genesis." Nokia and Finnish institutes and universities are working together on research and are ready to work with South Korea.
6G is still in the stage of theoretical research and development, and the key technology is still in the conceptual state, so it is difficult to describe its future development form.
"If 5G is the era of decentralization of smartphones, then 6G will be the post-smartphone era and fully enter the internet of everything” said Pottu, director of the Finish “6Genesis” project. However, 6G R&D will also face a variety of new challenges, such as materials, manufacturing process and energy consumption.
Although the pace of 6G research is basically in line with 5G, its cycle may last more than 10 years, and is not expected to be put into commercial use until 2030.
Song Zhang, Huawei’s vice president of research strategy and partnership in Canada, said: “5G is already pretty new, and 6G is part of the so-called 5G evolution.” Huawei expects that its Ottawa R&D lab will help lead global 6G development.