China's 6G progress needs collaboration of all sides: deputy minister

All aspects of China's telecom industry should work and innovate together to build the next-generation digital infrastructure, said Zhang Yunming, a deputy minister of industry and IT, at the 2023 Global 6G Development Conference in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality launched on Tuesday.

"We must speed up the development of high-end parts, advanced process, necessary software and precise measuring devices," Zhang told the conference via video link. "So we can make up for the shortcomings in 6G development."

Zhang called for cooperation among researchers, manufacturers and end users to work together for the 6G future.

As a pioneer of the 5G era, China has made solid progress in the development of 6G technologies. The country set up the International Mobile Telecommunication (IMT)-2030 (6G) Promotion Group in June 2019 based on its 5G predecessor involving main carriers, manufacturers, universities and research institutions in the process.

The promotion group released a white paper in July 2022 to describe their vision of the 6G network. In addition to even faster and more stable connections, the paper said 6G network will also be smarter and leave less of a carbon footprint.

The group is also working with their European, South Korean and Indian counterparts to promote international cooperation.

China's radio regulator has made it clear that the 5G and 6G networks can use 6GHz radio band in the country from July 2023, the first in the world.

An upgrade from 5G, 6G technology is the next step in mobile network development, which is expected to bring true gigabit-level connections with a latency of less than one millisecond. It will be able to maintain connections even while traveling at 1,000 kilometers per hour.

With a top speed of 1,000 gigabits per second, the 6G network is expected to provide a maximum speed of 10,000 megabit per second to every square meter of land.

(Cover via CFP.)