Nokia announced establishing a 6G Lab at its global R&D center in Bangalore, India, in what is seen as the Swedish telecom equipment maker’s bid to expand its operations in the South Asian country.
The first-of-its-kind project – which the company said will fuse the human, physical and digital worlds – aims to accelerate the development of fundamental technologies and innovative use cases underpinned by 6G to address the future needs of both industry and society.
The Lab includes a setup to research ‘Network as a Sensor’ technology that enables the network to sense objects, people and movement without the need for on-board sensors.
In the 6G era, this has been identified as a key enabling technology that supports the vision of bringing the digital and physical worlds together, a company statement said, adding that sensing will be fully integrated into the wireless network and operate simultaneously with communication services.
This has the potential to enable people to see around corners, gather information about their surroundings and even interact with objects at a distance.
The Lab will also provide an experimental platform for researching algorithms, privacy, and sustainable system design.
Nishant Batra, Chief Strategy and Technology Officer of Nokia, said the company looks forward to collaborating with key stakeholders to help India become a major player in 6G technology development and adoption.
“[The new project] will help India to take its place in the global arena as a leading developer and supplier of advanced telecom technologies and solutions,” he said.
Nokia leads global 6G initiatives
Nokia is a pioneer in 6G work and is engaged in several global projects and regional initiatives with industry peers, customers, academia, and research institutions.
The new India-based initiative aims to form a common view and direction for 6G, including 6G Hexa-X and Hexa-X-II, the first and second phase of the European 6G Flagship.
Nokia is also a founding member of the Next G Alliance which is helping to drive the 6G ecosystem in North America and coordinating the German Lighthouse project 6G ANNA.
Nokia’s experts at its Bengaluru center will support India’s ambition to make notable contributions towards global 6G technology standards, the company said.
Further, it is in the process of building research collaborations with premier research institutes in India like IISc, IITs to further scale up the 6G research initiative in India.
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