Ericsson Demos Live 6G Network for AI
Ericsson has conducted what it calls the world's first live 6G trial in Texas. The demonstration showcased AI-native 6G powering AI robotics and real-time video streaming. The test used a new 6G centimeter wave spectrum and a cloud-native infrastructure to process tasks for a large language model.
The "centimeter wave" (cmWave) spectrum, operating between 7-15 GHz, is a key focus for 6G because it offers a sweet spot of wider bandwidth than current 5G mid-bands and better coverage than high-frequency millimeter wave. This allows for the reuse of existing 3.5 GHz cell site grids, increasing capacity without a complete infrastructure overhaul. Ericsson's simulations for London show that adding 400 MHz of cmWave spectrum could more than double the downlink capacity. Unlike 5G, where AI was an add-on, 6G is being designed as an "AI-native" network. This means AI will be fundamentally embedded to manage the network itself, handling tasks like autonomous service creation, zero-touch management, and optimizing physical layer functions like waveform selection and coding schemes. The goal is a self-evolving network where AI agents continuously observe, decide, and tune performance with minimal human intervention. This deep integration of AI is expected to enable distributed learning and inference directly at the network edge. Instead of just transporting data, the 6G network will become an active participant in computation, capable of handling AI service requests and workloads within its own infrastructure. This architecture is crucial for future applications like autonomous vehicle fleet management, collaborative robots, and delivering generative AI services directly to mobile devices. The performance leap from 5G to 6G is substantial, targeting speeds up to 1 Terabit per second (Tbps) and latency as low as 0.1 milliseconds. This is a significant jump from 5G's peak of around 10-20 Gbps and ~1ms latency. Such capabilities are considered essential for futuristic use cases like real-time holographic communication and the Tactile Internet, which requires near-instantaneous feedback. Ericsson is collaborating with a range of partners to accelerate 6G development, including Qualcomm on radio innovations and joint prototypes. They are also working with Apple and MediaTek on validating 6G capabilities and demonstrating spectrum sharing between 5G and 6G networks. More recently, a partnership with Mistral AI was announced to co-develop custom AI agents for tasks like legacy code translation and to advance 6G research.
