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Introduction: The shift from 5G to 6G

Even as 5G coverage grows across the globe, leading telecom innovators are already investing heavily in 6G to secure next‑generation leadership. For Samsung Electronics, the transition is not merely about faster data rates; it is about building intelligent, sustainable, and immersive networks that will redefine how devices, data, and people interact in real time. The R&D runway for a generational leap in mobile technology spans years, which is why work on 6G is accelerating now—well ahead of commercial deployment—so standards, silicon, software, and spectrum strategy are ready when the industry hits the 2030 inflection point.

6G aims to solve challenges that 5G only began to address: ultra‑reliable latency at scale, energy efficiency across the entire network stack, ubiquitous coverage that blends terrestrial and non‑terrestrial networks, and end‑to‑end security resilient to the AI‑centric computing era. With AI workloads exploding and immersive applications demanding higher fidelity, 6G becomes the foundation for experiences that feel instant, personal, and spatially aware—no matter the environment.

Samsung’s 6G vision

Samsung frames 6G under a clear banner: the “Next Hyper‑Connected Experience for All.” In practice, this means uniting the physical and digital realms through network intelligence, abundant bandwidth, and service‑aware orchestration that adapts to context. The company spotlights three flagship service categories where 6G will have the biggest impact:

• Immersive XR (extended reality): photorealistic AR/VR/MR that is genuinely indistinguishable from reality, powered by microsecond‑class responsiveness and extreme throughput.
• Mobile holograms: volumetric, real‑time holographic communication that elevates presence and collaboration well beyond flat video calls.
• Digital twins: high‑fidelity virtual replicas of physical objects, processes, and environments that are synchronized in real time for monitoring, simulation, and control.

This user‑centric vision sets a north star for ecosystem partners, standards bodies, and operators, aligning RAN, core, devices, and applications around a common outcome: seamless, adaptive connectivity that fades into the background and simply works.

AI‑native network architecture

If 5G brought intelligence to the edge, 6G embeds intelligence into the network’s DNA. Samsung’s AI‑native approach integrates machine learning from system design through live operations, allowing networks to sense, predict, and optimize continuously.

• Design to operation: AI informs radio algorithms, scheduler logic, beam management, and interference mitigation before hardware ships, then keeps learning in production.
• Autonomous optimization: The network orchestrates traffic flows, predicts congestion, allocates spectrum and compute where needed, and tunes QoS per service—without manual intervention.
• Security and resilience: AI augments threat detection, anomaly response, and remediation, essential in a world where critical infrastructure, autonomous systems, and public services depend on connectivity.
• Energy efficiency: Intelligent sleep modes, adaptive signaling, and workload‑aware RAN/Core operations reduce energy per bit while preserving user experience.

This AI‑native blueprint is key to making 6G scalable and sustainable. It transforms the network from a fixed pipeline into a living system that self‑optimizes for performance, cost, and carbon impact.

Terahertz (THz) spectrum innovation

To deliver the leap in capacity that immersive and holographic services require, Samsung’s 6G research targets the terahertz spectrum—roughly 100–300 GHz—where ultra‑wide channels unlock unprecedented throughput. Early prototypes have demonstrated multi‑gigabit performance at 140 GHz over short ranges (for example, 6.2 Gbps over 15 meters) using adaptive beamforming, validating the physics and pointing the way to productizable architectures.

The ambition reaching into the 2030s is clear: peak data rates on the order of 1 Tbps—roughly 50× faster than today’s 5G peaks—paired with ultra‑low latency and jitter stability for truly real‑time experiences. To make THz practical, Samsung is advancing materials, packaging, RF front‑ends, and beam management that can withstand the unique propagation challenges of high‑frequency waves.

Technical breakthroughs

The path from lab demo to commercial network hinges on closing a set of hard engineering gaps. Samsung’s priorities cluster around radio, compute, and control:

• Advanced RFICs and antenna modules: Highly integrated, energy‑efficient RF front‑ends at THz frequencies, along with compact, high‑gain antenna arrays that support dynamic beam shaping and precise spatial targeting.
• ML‑driven beam steering: Real‑time algorithms that learn user motion, device orientation, and environmental geometry to maintain robust links despite THz short‑range and absorption constraints.
• Physical‑layer innovation: Smarter channel coding, modulation schemes, and waveform design tuned for ultra‑wide bandwidths and sensing‑augmented operation.
• Energy‑aware RAN: Intelligent power amplifiers, on‑demand signaling, and cross‑layer optimization to cut site‑level power draw while boosting effective capacity.

These breakthroughs ladder up to one goal: making 6G networks not just faster, but more efficient, reliable, and cost‑effective to deploy and run at scale.

Revolutionary applications

What will all this capability unlock in daily life and across industries? Three application families illustrate why 6G matters.

• Immersive XR indistinguishable from reality: 6G’s bandwidth and latency turn head‑mounted or glasses‑based experiences into natural extensions of the physical world—no stutter, no blur, no tether. Education, training, field service, entertainment, and design workflows all benefit from true presence and instant interactivity.
• Real‑time mobile holographic communication: Volumetric capture and rendering become mainstream communication primitives. Teams collaborate around life‑size holograms; families share moments that feel co‑located; creators and performers reach audiences in new dimensions.
• Digital twins for remote monitoring and control: From smart factories to hospitals to entire cities, digital twins let operators simulate scenarios, detect anomalies, and actuate changes in real time. Maintenance becomes predictive, downtime shrinks, and safety increases—while experts can intervene from anywhere.

Beyond these, 6G’s integrated sensing capabilities (ISAC) will let networks perceive their surroundings—enhancing beam decisions, improving localization, and enabling applications such as crowd analytics, infrastructure health monitoring, and drone navigation. The result is a network that doesn’t just carry data but understands context.

Global collaboration and standards

No generation of mobile technology happens in isolation. Samsung is working within multi‑company forums and standards bodies to shape 6G from spectrum policy to protocol design to interoperability. Participation in industry alliances—including a Verizon‑led 6G innovation initiative with Meta, Ericsson, Nokia, and Qualcomm—prioritizes use‑case discovery, spectrum exploration, prototype development, and field testing to de‑risk commercialization.

In parallel, leadership engagement with international standards organizations helps align on requirements for AI‑native operation, energy targets, NTN integration, and security frameworks. This collaborative approach ensures that early research translates into globally consistent specifications, certified devices, and cross‑vendor network deployment options.

Competitive landscape

The race to 6G spans network vendors, device makers, hyperscalers, operators, and academia. Samsung competes head‑to‑head with Nokia, Ericsson, and Huawei on radio systems and core software, while collaborating across the value chain on silicon, devices, and developer platforms. A key differentiator for Samsung is vertical integration: few companies can pair leading mobile devices, modems, and displays with full‑stack RAN/Core solutions and decades of semiconductor expertise.

That combination accelerates end‑to‑end optimization—from RF front‑ends tuned for THz, to AI‑native RAN schedulers, to device‑side power management—creating tangible user benefits and lower total cost of ownership for operators. As 6G crystallizes around immersive and spatial applications, device‑network co‑design becomes a competitive lever that favors integrated players.

Commercialization timeline

6G won’t arrive overnight; the industry follows a disciplined path:

• 5G‑Advanced as the bridge: The current phase upgrades 5G with AI‑enhanced scheduling, positioning, energy savings, and sidelink features that preview 6G behaviors. This creates immediate value while preparing networks and devices for the next step.
• Standards definition by 2028–2030: As research converges, international bodies formalize requirements and interfaces, harmonize spectrum allocations, and lock down security and performance baselines.
• First commercial deployments around 2030; mass rollout in early 2030s: Expect early urban hotspots, private networks for high‑value industrial use cases, and phased expansion as device ecosystems mature and operator business models evolve.

This cadence balances ambition with pragmatism, ensuring that when 6G services launch, they’re robust, interoperable, and ready for scale.

Why energy efficiency and sustainability matter

A defining promise of 6G is step‑change energy performance: dramatically lower energy per bit alongside meaningful reductions in absolute site power. AI‑driven sleep modes, on‑demand broadcasting, adaptive synchronization, and smarter RAN/Core orchestration shrink waste without degrading user experience. For operators, this translates into lower OPEX and carbon intensity. For society, it means meeting skyrocketing data demand without a proportional rise in energy use.

On devices, energy‑aware protocols and extended idle strategies can extend battery life—crucial for wearables, XR headsets, and massive IoT. The endgame is a network that scales sustainably, aligning with enterprise ESG goals and national energy policies.

What to watch next

As 6G development advances, several milestones will signal readiness:

• Public multi‑vendor THz trials that demonstrate stable, high‑throughput links in challenging urban environments.
• AI‑native RAN features rolling into commercial 5G‑Advanced networks, proving autonomous optimization at scale.
• Integrated sensing pilots where networks adapt beams and resources based on real‑time environmental understanding.
• Early digital‑twin deployments in manufacturing, logistics, and smart cities that quantify ROI from synchronized virtual‑physical operations.

These proof points will build confidence among operators, enterprises, and developers, catalyzing the ecosystem investment needed for 6G’s breakout moment.

Conclusion: Architecting tomorrow’s connectivity

Samsung’s 6G program weaves together a compelling vision and a concrete plan: AI‑native networks for self‑optimizing performance; terahertz spectrum for extreme capacity; radio and silicon breakthroughs that make THz practical; and applications—XR, holograms, digital twins—that turn raw capability into human impact. Through active roles in global forums and standards bodies, the company is helping ensure 6G arrives on time, interoperable, and ready to serve both consumers and industry.

The arc from 5G to 6G is about much more than faster bars on a status icon. It is about building a network that sees, learns, and adapts—one that collapses distance, augments rea

lity, and synchronizes digital and physical worlds. With early investments in THz research, AI‑native architectures, and cross‑industry partnerships, Samsung is positioned to lead the 6G era and pave the way to a truly hyper‑connected world.