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On June 6, 2019, China officially issued 5G commercial licenses. Six years have passed, and China has built the world’s largest 5G network, with a total of 4.55 million 5G base stations and over 850 million 5G users. Using 5G to watch videos, browse e-commerce platforms and hold meetings has long become a daily routine for hundreds of millions of netizens.
However, there are still many such questions online: In what aspects has 5G quietly changed our lives? How will the future mobile network evolve and bring about new changes to society?
01 Take root in the real economy
In June 2019, the Bilibili UP owner “Hello, Teacher, My name is He Tongxue” created and released a video titled “How Fast? Real Experiences of 5G in Daily Life”. At that time, while still studying at Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, he never expected that this video about 5G experience would go viral on the Internet. Central media outlets such as People’s Daily, China Media Group and Xinhua News Agency have all reposted and recommended it, and the total number of views across all platforms has exceeded 100 million.
With this video, “He Tongxue” quickly became popular. Now, he has over 12 million followers on Bilibili alone and has become one of the most well-known digital bloggers. “He Tongxue” has been jokingly called “the biggest beneficiary of 5G” by netizens. Despite the teasing, the implication of the netizens is that 5G, apart from making “He Tongxue” famous, doesn’t seem to be as highly praised as it was back then.
Is that really the case?
At the beginning of 5G commercialization, the three core capabilities promoted were high speed, low latency and large connection capacity. Among them, only “high speed” overlaps with the high-frequency demands of ordinary users. However, in daily scenarios such as watching videos and chatting on wechat, the previous 4G was basically “sufficient”, and 5G has not brought about a “qualitative change” in experience. Only in application scenarios such as cloud gaming and AR/VR lag-free interaction can users perceive the true differences between 5G and 4G. However, these application scenarios have not yet been widely adopted, and most users are unable to perceive them. This results in a gap between the actual user experience and their expectations.
This is actually a cognitive bias. The true value of 5G is not merely to “increase the speed of mobile Internet access”, but to provide underlying support for industrial scenarios such as industrial Internet, Internet of Things, and smart cities. Especially the low latency and large connection features that are difficult for ordinary users to directly perceive are the “trump cards” of 5G.
On March 16, 2019, Ling Zhipei, a chief physician in the Department of Neurosurgery at the Hainan Hospital of the PLA General Hospital, successfully performed a “brain pacemaker” implantation surgery for a patient at the PLA General Hospital. This is the first remote neurosurgery completed through 5G technology both domestically and globally.
During the operation, doctors need to control the robotic arm of the surgical robot in real time based on the patient’s electroencephalogram (EEG) signals to precisely implant electrodes deep in the patient’s brain. A slight mistake can lead to a huge error. With a latency as low as one-tenth of that of 4G, 5G networks have achieved nearly “real-time synchronization” operations, providing protection for this 3,000-kilometer-long surgery.
In July of this year, the urology team of Fuzhou University Affiliated Provincial Hospital, in close collaboration with experts in Beijing and France, successfully performed the resection and anastomosis of the upper segment of the left ureter, successfully completing the world’s first 5G ultra-remote robotic surgery across three countries. From technical verification to large-scale clinical application, 5G has brought remote surgery from science fiction to reality.
In the industrial sector, the penetration of 5G is even deeper. Zte’s Nanjing Binjiang Factory, located in Jiangning District, Nanjing City, is one of ZTE’s five major production bases in China and also the first enterprise in China to pass the five-star 5G factory certification. In the factory, the 5G network coverage rate has reached 100%, the network connection rate of on-site equipment exceeds 97%, and the network connection rate of key equipment has also reached 100%, among which the 5G network connection rate is as high as 89.3%. All wireless devices have been 5G-enabled.
Under the full connection support of 5G, technologies such as robots, AGVs, digital twins, machine vision, AI, and XR have been integrated and applied, significantly enhancing the efficiency of automation and the level of intelligence. The total output value of ZTE’s Nanjing Binjiang factory has increased by 41%, the per capita output value has risen by 81%, the delivery cycle has been shortened from 20 days to 14 days, carbon emissions have decreased by 29%, and the energy consumption per unit of product has dropped by 19%.
In addition, breakthroughs in areas such as drone inspection, universal remote education, and advanced intelligent driving are all supported by 5G. Today’s 5G has long transcended the simple upgrade of communication technology and has deeply integrated into all industries, forming an important engine driving industrial transformation. According to the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology’s estimation, over the past five years since the commercialization of 5G, it has directly driven a total economic output of approximately 5.6 trillion yuan and indirectly driven a total output of about 14 trillion yuan.
It is evident that 5G is not just “blown up” to the sky, but is deeply “rooted” in the real economy, continuously unleashing strong vitality in empowering industrial upgrading and driving economic growth.
02 6G makes its debut
Every major scientific and technological revolution in human society has given birth to epoch-making disruptive technologies, driving a leap in productivity and significant changes in the economy and society. 5G technology has become the “digital foundation” for industrial development, and the next-generation 6G technology is the strategic high ground for global future industrial competition.
This year, 6G was written into the government work report for the first time, and was listed in the core sequence of future industry cultivation along with biomanustering, quantum technology, and embodied intelligence, marking that 6G has officially been elevated to a national strategy.
Compared with 5G, what are the advanced features of 6G? The core capabilities of 5G are high speed, low latency and large connection capacity, and these three dimensions are precisely the core directions for the iterative research and development of each generation of mobile communication technology. In these three aspects, 6G can achieve at least a tenfold performance improvement over 5G, with faster transmission speed, lower latency and more connected devices.
More importantly, 6G features a “three-in-one” characteristic, namely, integrated communication and sensing (where communication signals can not only transmit information but also perceive the environment), integrated air and space (integrating communication resources in the air, on the ground, underground and underwater to form a seamless coverage network throughout the region), and integrated communication and intelligence (integrating communication and computing functions to enable the network to have both transmission and intelligent processing capabilities).
Entering the Nanjing Zijinshan Laboratory, you can experience the cutting-edge breakthroughs in 6G technology firsthand.
In 2018, one year before the official commercialization of 5G in China, Jiangsu Province and Nanjing City officially established the Purple Mountain Laboratory, with three top teams led by Academician Liu Yunjie, Academician You Xiaohu and Academician Wu Jiangxing at its core, focusing on conducting fundamental and disruptive research in cutting-edge fields such as 6G.
According to researchers, as early as the end of 2023, the 6G photon terahertz real-time wireless transmission communication experiment at Zijinshan Laboratory achieved a transmission rate of 1Tbps, with a transmission capacity that is 100 times higher than that of 5G. If the speed of 5G is like taking a high-speed train, the speed of 6G is comparable to taking a rocket. It only takes one second to download a high-definition movie.
Even more revolutionary is that the Purple Mountain Laboratory has broken the traditional cellular architecture of mobile communication and successfully developed “cell-free” communication technology. The traditional “cellular” communication technology meticulously divides the mobile communication coverage area into multiple “cells”, each of which is controlled by a base station. The communication between the base station and the mobile device relies on the transmission of wireless signals. The layout of this “community” resembles the hexagonal cells in a beehive, hence the name “cellular network”.
From 1G to 5G, although the speed of network transmission has been getting faster and faster, the underlying communication technology has remained unchanged. In recent years, with the increasing number of mobile terminals, the denser construction of base stations and transmission towers, and the more complex application scenarios, cellular technology has gradually become “inadequate”, and the anti-interference, speed and stability of signals have hit a “ceiling”.
If “cellular” communication is regarded as a small workshop fighting on its own and competing with each other, then the “cell-free” communication developed by Zijinshan Laboratory is a large factory that breaks down barriers and works in synergy. It has enabled 6G to achieve disruptive breakthroughs such as high transmission rate, low communication latency, wide coverage, and higher reliability and security.
Take the application scenarios of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) as an example. In the traditional “cellular” mode, UAVs need to fly through nearly 20 “cells” for 8 kilometers, and signal reception and switching may cause disconnection. However, the coverage radius of 6G cell-free communication technology can reach up to hundreds of kilometers, completely solving this problem.
In March this year, the first urban low-altitude logistics route equipped with 6G cell-free technology was launched in Jiangning District, Nanjing City. A drug delivery drone took off from a pharmacy near Tianyuan West Road and arrived at Zijinshan Science and Technology City, 7.4 kilometers away, in 13 minutes. Compared with traditional delivery methods, its efficiency is two to three times higher and the cost is reduced by 50% to 60%.
The “synesthesia integration” feature of 6G also demonstrates great potential. The 6G technology of Zijinshan Laboratory integrates communication and perception capabilities, making mobile communication networks simultaneously become “three-dimensional perception networks”, equivalent to more alert and intelligent radars.
In June this year, during the “Emergency Mission 2025” new quality rescue capability test exercise for extreme disaster and accident scenarios, Zijinshan Laboratory and China Railway Signal & Communication Corporation jointly deployed an emergency command platform integrating a low-altitude dedicated communication system, a low-altitude airspace intelligent control system ID-Space, and a low-altitude perception and countermeasure system. This platform, with its outstanding performance, rapidly built an “air-ground integrated” collaborative system, successfully controlling unmanned aerial vehicle swarms to complete the set technical and tactical tasks, fully demonstrating the advanced nature of 6G cell-free technology.
One detail is that 6G cell-free technology can provide dedicated network communication in emergency rescue, quickly establish communication links with a coverage distance of no less than 30 kilometers, achieve dynamic resource allocation and cluster scheduling of multi-standard integrated communication, and effectively solve the problem of complex disaster site information being “invisible, unreachable, unreachable and unreachable”.
The 6G technology, having just made its debut, has already demonstrated remarkable excellence. Relying on the Purple Mountain Laboratory, Nanjing has achieved over ten “world firsts” in the field of 6G communication technology, formed more than 30 innovative achievements, and the Purple Mountain Laboratory has won the National Science and Technology Award twice.
03 Industrial Science and Technology Innovation Community
In 1973, Martin Cooper, an engineer from MOTOROLA, invented the world’s first mobile phone. In 1978, Bell LABS, a subsidiary of AT&T, successfully developed an advanced mobile phone system based on the concept of cellular networks. This was the first generation of mobile communication systems (1G). In 1991, Ericsson and Nokia were the first to set up the first GSM network on the European continent (one of the main standards of 2G). In 1985, Qualcomm developed CDMA technology (the technical foundation of 3G) using “spread spectrum technology”. The technologies and standards of 4G and 5G were jointly developed and formulated by enterprises such as Nokia, Ericsson, Huawei, ZTE, Qualcomm and Intel.
Looking back at history, we can see that the technological iteration of mobile communication networks has been driven and led by enterprises. Compared with other technologies, mobile communication network technology has been deeply bound to industrial demands since its birth and has iterated and grown in the practice of enterprises, possessing a strong “industrial attribute”.
This feature was vividly demonstrated at the 9th Future Network Development Conference, which opened on August 20th. This conference, with the theme of “Networking the World to Win the Future”, focuses on hot topics such as artificial intelligence, large models, and digital computing networks. It features an opening ceremony, a main forum, 18 sub-forums, as well as the release of innovative achievements in the field of future networks, a future network science and technology innovation competition, and an exhibition of innovative achievements. It not only gathers technical experts in the field of communication, but also attracts industry practitioners such as Huawei and ZTE to participate.
The conference released three major scientific and technological achievements, namely the all-domain integrated data computing network scheduling platform, the industry’s first network large model and multi-agent system for wide area networks, and the AI automatic design toolchain for baseband circuits, as well as multiple industrial cooperation agreements, jointly building a new ecosystem for computing power networks.
As a highly influential and important conference in the field of network technology and communication, the Future Network Development Conference not only effectively promoted the innovation of network communication technology in our country, but also facilitated the cooperation among industry, academia and research, vividly demonstrating the deep integration of mobile communication technology and industry.
The positioning of Nanjing Zijinshan Laboratory is also a typical carrier of this attribute: it is not only a research highland dedicated to technological breakthroughs, but also a community of industrial technological innovation. Centering on the Zijinshan Laboratory, Nanjing has established a “Zijinshan Cubic” integrated system for the transformation of scientific and technological achievements, accelerating the cultivation and development of new quality productive forces.
As the “first power”, Zijinshan Laboratory serves as an innovation source, playing the role of “innovation source + concept verification”, and mainly focuses on forward-looking and leading technological breakthroughs. As the “square”, Zijinshan Group is a capital reservoir, driving the transformation of scientific and technological achievements through “capital empowerment + carrier operation”. As a “cubic” incubator, Zijinshan Science and Technology City promotes the industrialization of 6G technology through “policy support + industrial chain investment attraction”.
With the support of this system, Nanjing Xinhe Sensing Technology Co., LTD., which was established less than a year ago, has received nearly 20 million yuan in research and development funds. It has become the first project to be transformed by the Zijinshan Laboratory through the “combination of allocation and investment” mechanism, demonstrating the high efficiency of the implementation of research results.
The Jiangning District where the Zijinshan Laboratory is located provides a solid support for the industrialization of 6G technology. Jiangning is accelerating the construction of a “5+4+5” innovative industrial cluster, focusing on five advantageous industries including smart grid, new-generation information technology, new energy (intelligent connected) vehicles, high-end intelligent equipment, and new energy conservation and environmental protection. It is also making efforts in four leading industries: biomedicine and new medical devices, aerospace, cutting-edge new materials, and artificial intelligence. Develop five future industries: future networks, third-generation semiconductors, cells and genes, the metaverse, energy storage, and hydrogen energy. Among them, the industrial output value of the new generation of information technology industry will exceed 122 billion yuan in 2024, with a significant advantage.
A set of data shows that Jiangning has cultivated a total of 13 manufacturing single-champion enterprises and 49 listed companies, and has 113 national-level specialized, refined, distinctive and innovative enterprises, becoming the first county-level administrative region in Jiangsu Province to exceed 100.
Thanks to its forward-looking layout, since the establishment of the Zijinshan Laboratory in 2018, Jiangning District has precisely laid out upstream industries such as integrated circuits and chip manufacturing, component equipment and sensors, computing power industry, artificial intelligence, and emerging software. A large number of enterprises, such as ZTE Corporation, the Third Generation Semiconductor Technology Innovation Center, Tencent Cloud Computing Center, and China Telecom Cloud Computing Center, have been successively established. Jiangning District is vigorously promoting enterprises to go “cloud” and the “intelligent transformation, digital transition and network connection” of manufacturing. It has selected 15 typical industries such as auto parts and smart grids to create rich application scenarios for 6G technology.
Last September, the first national university information and communication Regional technology Transfer and Transformation center (Jiangsu) was established in Jiangning District. It is precisely to fully leverage the advantages of the province’s scientific and educational talent resources and Jiangning’s information technology industry advantages, smooth the virtuous cycle of education, science and technology, and talent, and transform the scientific and technological achievements of universities into tangible productive forces.
From technology research and development to concept validation, from enterprise incubation to industrial transformation, Jiangning has built an integrated innovation ecosystem of “industry-university-research-application”, accelerating the transition of 6G technology from the laboratory to the market.
Looking back at the global innovation history of mobile communications, each generation of technological revolution has been a contest of national scientific and technological strength. From the absence of 1G and 2G, to following in 3G, keeping pace in 4G, and then taking the lead in 5G, China’s contribution and say in global communication standards have continued to rise.
International Data Corporation (IDC) points out that the 6G industry is accelerating into the “pre-standard race” stage. China’s 6G research and development level is generally in the first echelon globally, and the number of 6G patent applications remains among the top in the world.
As the cornerstone of future industrial development, 6G will not only upgrade strategic digital infrastructure but also give birth to brand-new industrial opportunities. Nanjing is an important city in China that has made the earliest and core layout of the future network industry. On the basis of building a “sailing city” for 5G applications and creating a pilot zone for the integrated application of “5G+ industrial Internet”, it is fully committed to building a 6G city and a leading demonstration zone for the development of the 6G industry. Nanjing Jiangning has already seized the initiative and is ready to go.
