According to news on March 4, Yang Chaobin, President of Huawei ICT BG, announced during MWC that global 6G standardization has officially started.
6G Standardization Kicks Off, First 3GPP Version Expected in 2029
Yang Chaobin pointed out that based on the current technology evolution pace, the freeze time of the first 3GPP 6G standard release is expected to be no earlier than March 2029. This means that in the coming years, the industry’s main task will still be to improve the current communication foundation.
5G-A as a Critical Transition: Supporting Mobile AI Explosion
In his view, the next five years will be a critical window for the explosion of mobile AI services. Before 6G officially arrives, 5G-A (5.5G) has become an inevitable choice to support the large-scale deployment of AI applications.
Industry data shows that global daily Token consumption has increased nearly 300 times in the past two years, directly driving AI applications such as text-to-video and intelligent shopping. More than 30 million AI agents are now collaborating worldwide, placing huge pressure on networks.
This transformation places new demands on network capabilities. To support AI multimodal cloud-end data interaction, networks must shift from the traditional downlink-dominated model to provide ultra-large uplink and downlink bandwidth, while ensuring ultra-low latency for real-time collaboration.
At present, 5G-A technology has been commercially deployed in more than 300 cities globally. However, its continuous performance improvement still heavily relies on the introduction of new spectrum, especially the refarming and optimization of existing spectrum, which is critical to ensuring network quality.
Yang noted that 5G-A now supports the U6GHz band (the upper part of the 6GHz spectrum), and mainstream terminal chips and industrial chain components have become mature. This paves the way for larger-scale commercial applications and will accelerate the deep integration of AI and mobile communications.
Global 6G Patent Landscape: Huawei Takes the Lead
Previous data shows that there are about 20,000 core 6G patents worldwide, with China accounting for 40.3%, maintaining a leading position. Meanwhile, the US share has risen sharply from 15% in 5G to 35.2%, showing a strong catching-up trend.
Huawei still ranks first with a 15.7% share of global 6G patents.
