- Not much is happening on the 6G technical front
- 3GPP won’t release the full cellular specification until some time in 2028 or even 2029
- Yet, Nokia has already started work on early 6G development
Although many of the headlines around Nvidia’s $1 billion stake in Nordic telecom vendor Nokia center around AI, Nokia’s work around 6G and even 5G-Advanced may prove to be more interesting for the GPU slinger.
There isn’t much happening on the 6G technical front yet, hardly surprising when you consider that the 3GPP won’t release the full cellular specification until some time in 2028 or even 2029. This will mean that operators will probably start to roll out commercial networks in 2030.
Early 6G work
Yet, Nokia has already started work on early 6G development. “We're doing work early on 6G, I would say pre-standard 6G radio technology,” Nokia CEO Justin Hotard said on Nokia’s third quarter earnings call last week. Even before the Nvidia deal was announced, the Nokia cheif noted how closely this was related to the company’s AI RAN and cloud RAN efforts.
The company has also been working on massive multiple input, multiple output (MIMO) upper-6 GHz radios of a type that may be utilized in 5G-Advanced and 6G. Although not as sexy - and dare we say - bubbly as AI chatbots, these kind of radio arrays will be one of the backbones that will power future 5G and 6G technology. Particularly as multiple operators have already told Fierce that they see no need for a new core network for 6G, beyond 5G standalone
Given that 6G will likely develop along software-derived cloud lines. It is likely that that a 6G accelerator will be used alongside more standard silicon to boost the performance of the cellular standard. Much like 5G accelerators have become common in 5G infrastructure.
Nokia could potentially help give Nvidia a leg-up in developing a 6G accelerator given that the vendor is already moving ahead on 6G radio.
Patent Tussle
Meanwhile, the AI GPU darling and the telecom vendor could also potentially co-operate on patents. Nokia already has 7,000 patent families related to 5G, and it and Nvidia are already clearly trying to assemble as much of a patent horde as they can against global challengers like Ericsson, Huawei and Qualcomm.
The 6G patent tussle — when it arrives — will be intense. Or maybe, it's already here.