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6G wireless telecommunications is a key emerging technology that has already become a field for international strategic competition, most notably between the United States and China. By dramatically increasing capacity and lowering latency for wireless-data transmission, 6G promises to enable applications on new orders of magnitude or which are qualitatively new. These effects will translate into comparative national economic performance and into military capabilities available to states.
6G’s performance parameters are still being defined, and its enabling technologies are still in relatively early stages of research and development (R&D). However, both the US and China, motivated by their intensifying strategic rivalry, are already prioritising the technology’s development and exploring its potential for military uses.
Whereas national-security concerns around 5G are focused on its potential for espionage or sabotage through the presence in networks of equipment from politically untrusted actors, 6G will directly impact the international balance of military capabilities. For example, one of 6G’s expected military uses is rapid, reliable and secure transmission of much higher volumes of data between fast-moving military platforms, including in outer space for ballistic-missile early warning.
To date, Washington has not prioritised development of next-generation telecoms to the extent that Beijing has, notably in deployment of 5G infrastructure and services. The upshot is long-term erosion of the US telecoms equipment industry. At the same time, the US still has strengths in its innovation ecosystems and in that US firms are well-positioned in key enabling technologies for next-generation telecoms, for example capabilities in software and semiconductors. The US is now shifting towards a more active government role in development of strategic emerging technologies, including 6G. Washington is also pursuing partnerships with allied and partner nations to accelerate as well as coordinate technological developments in ways that increasingly exclude China and capitalise on US strengths.
China’s approach to technological development is state led, and it seeks to channel all the nation’s resources under direct government influence and to manipulate markets and global standards setting in Beijing’s favour. This statist approach has helped Chinese firms and research institutions immensely. From a negligible role in the global telecoms industry in the 1980s, China now holds advantageous positions in many aspects of 5G wireless telecoms, providing a strong foundation for further progress. This is reflected in metrics for 6G development such as patent filings and real-world implementations of relevant enabling or precursor technologies. However, China’s capacity to develop 6G faces major constraints from continuing reliance on foreign technological inputs and US targeting of these dependencies through export controls as well as other measures.
Given the potentially significant effects of 6G on national security and economics, coupled with increasingly diverging geopolitical interests between the US and China, competition in this field among the two powers alongside other technologically capable states is expected to intensify. This contestation will increasingly extend to third-party markets as more countries build next-generation telecoms infrastructure – with implications for international technological ecosystems and the global balance of technological power.
Specification of 6G parameters and technical standardisation is still several years away with commercial avail-ability of 6G technologies expected by the late 2020s. The coming years thus provide a window to frame policy-research agendas for 6G and to examine the underlying drivers of innovation ecosystems for future wireless-telecoms development. This requires a grasp of the basic nature of the technology and its applications, the relative positions of the US and China in its development and the way these two states’ intensifying rivalry will shape evolution of a global telecoms industry that has become highly transnational and commercially driven.
This report first outlines the technological basics concerning 6G and its envisaged applications. It then reviews how the US and China have arrived at their current positions in the development of wireless telecoms. Next, the report examines academic collaboration and knowledge networks between the two countries and third parties, the role of government in the US and China in 6G development, and the role of industry in each power. The study then looks at international standards setting as an aspect of this national competition and at the broader international politics of 6G. Finally, the report assesses the defence and security implications of 6G.
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