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With 5G capabilities yet to begin rolling out, companies are already working on 6G, including Nokia. Its CEO, Pekka Lundmark believes that 6G will officially enter the commercial markets by 2030. Lundmark gave the remarks while speaking at a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos earlier this week.
The world will transition from smartphones to wearable devices before the arrival of 6G, the Nokia CEO said
Although there are expectations that 6G will officially start making the waves later this decade, Lundmark said it won’t be smartphones that take this new tech to the next decade. When asked about a timeline for when the world moves from smartphones to smart wearable devices, he said it would happen sometime before the arrival of 6G.
“By then, definitely the smartphone as we know it today will not anymore be the most common interface. Many of these things will be built directly into our bodies,” Lundmark said. He didn’t go into much detail on how this would occur or what it would look like. He went on to add that there will be a “digital twin of everything” by 2030, requiring “massive computational resources.”
As CNBC rightly points out, companies like Neuralink, co-founded by Elon Musk, are already developing smart electronic devices that could be implanted into the brain. This could potentially change the way we communicate with machines and people. However, it’s still some distance away, so we’re not holding our breath for its arrival. Companies are also working on smart chips that can fit inside people’s fingers to unlock digital locks or other peripherals.
6G will bring significant performance improvements while slashing latency
As for Nokia, the company wants to be at the forefront of 6G when it arrives, as is clear from its investment in the field. Meanwhile, a large chunk of the world is yet to experience 4G or capable data speeds.
Current estimates suggest that the successor to 5G will enable higher frequencies with higher capacity and significantly lower latency. By aiming to offer one microsecond latency communications, it would be 1,000 times faster compared to one millisecond throughput. Regardless of the advancements that 6G would bring, it’s safe to say that it would take beyond 2030 to make it available to the masses.