Future technologies for an intelligent society
Digital infrastructure plays a critical role in our society, with communication technologies helping to address social, environmental, and economic challenges all across the globe. The intelligent network platform will be reinvented to meet new needs and include capabilities beyond connectivity. This reinvented network will form the core of our digital infrastructure. We work to ensure that the robust 5G network platform of today continues to evolve towards the 6G era, delivering new capabilities and the kind of extreme performance required by application areas like the internet of senses and communication among intelligent machines.
Our research agenda comprises a set of technology journeys towards 2030 and the 6G era. These technology journeys outline our view of technology evolution in the coming years and guide our research activities.
Four of these technology journeys emphasize use case needs, exploring the demanding requirements future use cases will place on the network platform, and suggesting new capabilities they will need. The other four capture the evolution of the intelligent network platform itself.
Between today and each of the end scenarios, there is an exciting technology journey consisting of multiple tracks.
The 2030 vision is also our 6G vision. 2030 is the timeframe when we see 6G emerging as the future intelligent network platform. Presently, we have a very broad definition of 6G including all aspects highlighted by the technology journeys.
Explore the technology journeys
Each technology area has its own transformative potential– but it is the combinatorial effects of the technology developments that will unleash disruptive transformations. In the past, as an example, smartphones combined technology development in processing, memory, cloud, connectivity, and battery to create a new disruptive offering. More recently, additional transformative technologies have emerged – AI, edge computing, IoT, extended reality, new computing paradigms, and smart materials.
Going forward, technology progress will make possible a fully digitalized, automated, and programmable world of connected humans, machines, things, and places. All experiences and sensations will be transparent across the boundaries of physical and virtual realities. It is a world where both humans and the machines that serve us are augmented by intelligent interactions with each other and with autonomous systems.
The network platform will serve as the spinal cord of the digital infrastructure, with the ability to carry vital messages, commands, intelligence, and all the required sensory information.
Gain a glimpse of how 6g technology could shape the future.