Name: What is 6G and why is China ahead?
Uploaded: 2025-12-21T04:32:32.000Z
Duration: 5 min 19 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

It's been billed as the connection that will change the way we interact with technology and the world around us.

Basic passive voice

6G is expected to not only speed up cellular and Internet connectivity, it also promises to blur the lines between the physical and digital realms.

And China appears to be leading the way in developing the next generation of digital connection.

Here to tell us more about this is our post China desk reporter, Victoria Bella.

Victoria it seems like it was only not too long ago when we were introduced to 5G.

Yeah, so the sixth generation of wireless communications technology, or 6G, is the successor to 5G, which was deployed worldwide in just 2019 by mobile operators.

So each generation of technology seeks to sort of expand the limits of communication.

Earlier standards were able to expand our voice and text communication.

But the 5G era really set out to connect complex systems, automated systems, which made possible innovations in things like augmented reality, artificial intelligence and such.

But with 6G, the goal really is to fuse the human and digital worlds together.

The aim is to sort of bring those two closer together and make smarter, more intelligent and more interesting technologies possible.

It will also expand upon the current capabilities of 5G.

So it'll make it faster and smarter, but also more energy efficient.

What types of applications are we looking at here?

Beyond expanding current applications such as virtual reality, augmented reality, artificial intelligence and the Internet of things, we could also see some really interesting next generation technology.

Things that used to only exist in movies become possible.

We could see our future meetings being held with holograms.

We could see some really realistic worlds in augmented reality.

We could also see digital twins become more common.

They're an exact a virtual replica of an object or a system that is updated in real time.

And so those could be used to develop very smart maps for navigation systems.

They could even be used in human telemedicine to perform surgeries.

So the applications are pretty expensive.

And 6G will also likely be combined in combination with other technologies like AI.

And we can see some really interesting things emerge from that.

So does it sound like it's more of like commercial applications we're looking at here in terms of consumers?

Yeah, the goal is currently to deploy 6G commercially by the end of this decade, if standards can be set.

So certainly there will be commercial applications for users, but

I think there's also going to be a lot of applications for the industry.

We could see it being used very broadly in many different sectors.

And China seems to be driving development of 6G.

Why is China so keen to move forward with this?

Well, a Chinese industry report from last year by some major players in China's telecommunications industry indicated that one of the reasons that European and American developers are lagging behind in the development of 6G is that they had a lag in 5G deployment.

So China has the most 5G base stations in the world and has generally been leading the deployment of 5G.

Some countries have not yet had a chance to really catch up with it.

Some other countries, the report indicated that some other countries like Japan and South Korea, who have also seen good deployment of 5G, are also pretty optimistic about 6G development, but

that operators in countries like France, Italy and Germany are a bit more conservative about their development of 6G, which could impact the kind of standards that they set forth, which will eventually impact the performance metrics that 6G is judged on.

So this is a bit of an issue for China because obviously they are a bit more ahead in their 5G deployment, which means that they're also more ahead and ready to deploy 6G.

So does that mean then the early movers then can actually have the advantage in a sense, because they can set the standards?

One of the main standards bodies is the International Telecommunication Union.

It's an agency under the United nations and it helps set standards for 6G.

It did so for 5G and the generations before it as well.

And China has already made some moves and set some standards through the union for 6G.

So certainly they will be taking into account the proposals that are given to them earlier.

So their goal is to set 6G standards by 2030.

And we could see some commercial rollouts or some test rollouts happening even earlier than that.

And certainly China is ahead at the moment, so they're definitely a player that we might see moving forward earlier with tests for 6G.

So you're talking about rollout, did you say by the end of the decade?

The goal is to have some commercial rollout by the end of the decade.

That goalpost might move, but at the moment that is the goal they have set and for consumers.

When will we start being offered 6G services then, do you think?

Yeah, I think that really depends on the country, but

I can expect that post 2030 it's going to be available for the users as well.

We'll be looking at out for future developments.

Thanks so much, Victoria and you can find out more about the latest developments in 6G by visiting scmp.com.