As numerous companies in the telecom sector are working to make 5G accessible on a massive public and global scale, the geopolitical race to claim 6G has already begun between the U.S and China.
This race is considered to be having the highest stakes in the upcoming industrial revolution. The victory for the respective company and government in developing the technology and claiming the patent for 6G will be no doubt tremendously huge. However, according to Bloomberg, the concept of the delivering such technology is considered to be a ‘stuff of science fiction’.
The idea of bringing 6G to reality would require approximately a decade worth of research and development. In comparison to 5G, 6G is said to be 100 times faster when 5G speed is a it’s peak. 6G is said to have the probable ability to deliver real – time holograms and allow human bodies and brains to be connected with the internet.
According to Peter Vetter, Head of Access and Devices at Nokia Oyj’s research arm Bell Labs:
“This endeavor is so important that it’s become an arms race to some extent. It will require an army of researchers on it to remain competitive.”
The war between the U.S and China to acquire high end technological advancements has been going for quite a while now as Trump’s administration gave a huge blow to Chinese companies such as the likes of Huawei from accelerating in areas such as telecom. Despite of all the efforts, China still remains prominent by providing more attractive 5G services to customers in comparison to it’s U.S rivals.
According to the Senior Industry Director of Information and Communication Technologies at Frost & Sullivan U.S, Vikrant Gandhi:
“Unlike 5G, North America will not let the opportunity for a generational leadership slide by so easily this time. It is likely that the competition for 6G leadership will be fiercer than that for 5G.”
The U.S had taken certain steps before to handicap Chinese companies by banning ZTE, which almost collapsed in 2018, from purchasing American technology. Despite of the U.S government’s efforts to cripple the technological sector of China, the country is already moving ahead as they launched a satellite in November to test airwaves for potential 6G transmission.
The battle for harnessing 6G has further escalated to new heights as the Alliance for Telecommunication Industry Solutions (ATIS) launched the Next G Alliance to ‘advance North American leadership in 6G’. The alliance consists of technology giants such as Apple, AT&T, Qualcomm, Google and Samsung Electronics. However, Huawei was not mentioned in this list as it was identified by the U.S as an espionage risk which Huawei has denied on countless occasions.
Despite of the war for 6G, the technology may not reach its full potential at least 15 years from now. Currently 5G is still being rolled out to numerous countries and further applications are being developed to attract consumers to 5G hence ensuring further profit to the respective companies.
