Japanese media reported that the United States and Japan have agreed to work together to invest $4.5 billion to develop next-generation 6G communication technology. A battle for 6G supremacy with China (Communist Party) is gradually heating up.
U.S. President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga held a summit in Washington, D.C., last week. According to the information released after the meeting, the two countries will invest in research and development, testing, deployment of secure networks and advanced information and communication technologies, and “the United States has committed to invest $2.5 billion in this, Japan injected $2 billion”.
The Nihon Keizai Shimbun reports that the U.S. and Japan are calling for a “secure and open” 5G network, including an “open architecture wireless access network” (Open-RAN), reflecting the intention of the two leaders to create a communications network not led by China (Communist Party). Open-RAN
Open-RAN is an open resource platform. Network operators can mix and match hardware equipment from different vendors on this platform without having to own the entire set of antennas and base station systems.
So far, China’s Huawei Technologies and ZTE together control about 40% of the base station market. If you add the European companies Ericsson and Nokia, Samsung Electronics and other major manufacturers, 90% of the market share is taken, the United States and Japan are far behind.
In terms of 5G patents, Huawei and Qualcomm each account for about 10%, while Japanese communications company NTT Docomo only accounts for about 6%.
Despite repeated challenges from the U.S., Huawei has continued to outperform other 5G vendors around the world by offering attractive prices. Although the former U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has been hitting Chinese technology companies hard for years, it has not been able to stop China from becoming a 5G leader.
China’s race to catch up with advanced countries in 5G development has boosted the confidence of the Communist Party leadership under Xi Jinping. Now that China is determined to succeed again in the 6th generation of communications technology, the new 5-year plan adopted by the National People’s Congress in March includes the development of 6G.
Last November, China launched a satellite for testing airwaves for the developing 6G transmission technology. Huawei has a 6G research center in Canada, according to Canadian media reports. Telecom equipment maker ZTE is also working with China Unicom (Hong Kong) to develop 6G technology.
Japanese government officials lamented that Japan was too slow to start in the 5G race. One official said, “Even though we have better technology, we can’t win this race and grab market share.”
To avoid repeating the same mistake, Tokyo has resolved to face the 6G field and to fight the international war from the beginning. At the end of last year, Japan set up an industry-government-academia alliance with the goal of increasing Japan’s patent share to 10%.
The Japanese side believes that setting global standards is the key to developing next-generation communication technologies and therefore tries to cooperate with the United States in this regard.
Information released after the Japan-U.S. Leadership Summit also mentioned a goal to expand U.S.-Japan communications cooperation to “third countries” to promote secure connectivity. In developing global standards, having other partners join the U.S.-Japanese led initiative should help compete with the Chinese (Communist) countries.
For the U.S., the development of 6G is an opportunity to regain lost ground in wireless technology.
Unlike 5G, this time North America will not let the opportunity to be a generation leader slip away,” said Vikrant Gandhi, senior director of the Ares Technology Industry at Frost & Sullivan, “The battle for 6G leadership can be even more intense than 5G. “
Washington has already begun planning the 6G front. Last October, the North American telecommunications organization “Alliance for Electronic Communications Standardization” (ATIS) created a 6G communications technology alliance called the Next G Alliance “to enhance North America’s 6G leadership position. Members include Apple Inc., AT&T, Qualcomm, Google, Samsung Electronics and other technology giants, but not Huawei.
The alliance reflects a global split into opposing camps over 5G competition. The U.S. has determined that Huawei poses a spying risk, but Huawei denies it. Under the leadership of the United States, Japan, Australia, Sweden, the United Kingdom and other countries have blocked Huawei’s 5G network; Russia, the Philippines, Thailand, other African and Middle Eastern countries still welcome Huawei equipment.
The European Union (EU) also announced last December a 6G wireless network plan spearheaded by Nokia, with participants including Ericsson, Telefonica SA and several universities.
While most of the world has yet to experience the benefits of 5G, and 6G is still a theoretical proposition, the competition is heating up, highlighting how geopolitics is intensifying technology competition, especially between the U.S. and China. In a way, it has turned into an arms race.
Under the researchers’ vision, 6G transmission speeds could be as high as 1 terabyte (megabyte) per second with a delay time of just 0.1 milliseconds, less than the minimum delay time of 1 millisecond for 5G. To this end, scientists are focusing on the development of ultra-high frequency megahertz wave (THz) to meet the above speed and delay time requirements. However, no chip is yet capable of transmitting such a large amount of data in one second.
Theoretically, in a 6G world, everything around us will be connected to the 6G network. People can not only communicate with furniture, clothing and other items, these devices can also communicate with each other. But the imaginary world of the future will eventually come true, it is too early to say.
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