(Yicai) Aug. 25 -- The State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, a Chinese government agency under the State Council responsible for managing the country’s state-owned enterprises, held a meeting to advance the development of the sixth-generation mobile communications future industry among central SOEs. 

During the meeting on Aug. 20, the SASAC outlined priorities for the next phase of work in addressing technological gaps, strengthening industrial foundations, accelerating international cooperation, and fostering new application scenarios and business models, aiming to establish a closed-loop commercial ecosystem for 6G.

Executives from 31 central SOEs involved in the 6G future industry attended the meeting. The event also introduced a collaborative task for central SOEs to jointly develop 6G application scenarios.

Technological weaknesses must be addressed by strengthening fundamental theoretical research, advancing breakthroughs in core components and underlying technologies, and building a secure and resilient 6G industrial and supply chain, the SASAC stressed, while also calling for setting diversified collaboration mechanisms and enhancing China’s influence in global technology discussions.

In addition, the SASAC highlighted the need to develop new application scenarios and business models, promote deeper integration between 6G technologies and the real economy, build a first-mover advantage in application ecosystems, and accelerate the development of a commercially viable 6G ecosystem.

Last November, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announced that China had completed the first phase of its 6G technology trials and had entered the second phase, focused on developing prototype systems for representative application scenarios. The third phase will focus on developing pre-commercial equipment, with commercial 6G deployment expected to start around 2030.

The MIIT granted the IMT-2030 (6G) Promotion Group approval to use the 6 gigahertz band for 6G trials in May. The allocation covers 700 megahertz of contiguous spectrum from 6425MHz to 7125MHz, which the telecommunications industry describes as “the golden spectrum.” 

The band is highly compatible with the existing 5G mid-band ecosystem and can leverage mature global industrial capabilities to reduce network deployment and construction costs, enabling a smooth transition from 5G to 6G, according to an official from the MIIT’s Radio Management Bureau.

Regarding international standards, the 3rd Generation Partnership Project Radio Access Network technical specification group completed the “6G Scenarios and Technical Requirements” project in June. China Mobile served as the rapporteur for the project, while the results will be used as a reference framework for the first release of 6G radio technology standards and provide important input for the International Telecommunication Union Radiocommunication Sector in defining 6G performance requirements.

Several central SOEs have begun strategic planning in the sector, with China Information and Communication Technology Group advancing research into key technologies such as satellite-terrestrial network integration to meet the low-latency and wide-area coverage requirements of industrial, transportation, and defense applications. In addition, China Telecom is developing a 6G ubiquitous intelligent network, using edge computing to support collaborative operations among factory robots and real-time digital twin simulations, while also leveraging integrated communication and sensing technologies to enable urban security monitoring and traffic flow prediction.

Future industries like 6G have become key areas in reshaping the global economic landscape, noted Gou Husheng, chairman of China International Engineering Consulting Corporation. During the 15th Five-Year Plan period through 2030, China should use application scenarios to drive breakthroughs in core technologies while leveraging central SOEs as “patient capital” providers and strategic supporters, Gou pointed out.

Editor: Martin Kadiev