Nokia unveiled today its new logo, but that was only one of the statements the company made. Underlying the change, the next step: 6G for enterprises and industries is officially on the map.
Nokia announced it will intensify research and development of future networks, more specifically 5G-Advanced and 6G, as it prioritises a change towards increased solutions for enterprise and industry use cases.
“When networks meet cloud, this will unleash the full promise of the industrial enterprise and consumer metaverse,” said Pekka Lundmark, President and CEO of Nokia, during a pre-MWC conference.
“This new brand is about the future. We believe we’re entering an era when networks don’t just collect; they also sense. And we believe future networks will be used for sensing,” added Nishant Batra, CTO at Nokia.
In that future, 6G will be central, according to the executives. One of Nokia’s six pillars for the coming decade is securing business longevity in Nokia. The main steps towards that goal have started being taken with the building of a 5G-Advanced and 6G patent portfolio. Long-term research is another example.
“From a research perspective, we talk about video, we talk about AI-native air interfaces, and there’s extreme massive MIMO” Batra enumerated when asked by 6GWorld about areas where Nokia would focus on.
“Presumability,” he added. “It’s about having automation and creating the API infrastructure on the top. We will need to sell more than subscriptions in 6G, and that’s a big area of research for us.”
Many Hands
Even though Nokia’s been developing its own roadmap, the research heading to a functional 6G technology will be carried out in collaboration with other players.
The company included in the event messages from two partners – Bosh and NTT Docomo. In February, Nokia and the Japanese operator announced the achievement of two 6G milestones:
- An AI/ML-based air interface
- A terahertz transmission of 25 Gbps on a single 256QAM stream over at 144 GHz using beamforming
With Bosh, the interest seems to be on the industrial and enterprise levels. “6G should be designed with verticals from the beginning,” said Andreas Mueller, Head of 6G at Bosh, in a recorded message. “6G will fuel and accelerate the metaverse and digital twinning for the industry. [Will provide] Integrated sensing. The possibilities are almost endless,” he finished.
Because there are so many options, Nokia wants to set itself apart from its competitors in a race that has already started. 6G might be one way for that.
“It’s time to claim the space we already lead,” Lundmark vowed. “It’s time to reframe how our customers and partners see us as a B2B technology innovation leader, realising the potential of digital in every industry.”
Photos by Caio Colagrande/6GWorld
Journalist since eight years old, when I would read the newspaper out loud and pretend it was a radio show. Based in São Paulo, I have worked for Brazilian websites as reporter and editor before joining 6GWorld
