Global 6G Conference 2025 Opens in Nanjing

From April 10th to 12th, 2025, the 2025 Global 6G Conference, hosted by the FuTURE Forum and the Purple Mountain Laboratories, was grandly held at the Nanjing Shangqinhuai International Cultural Exchange Center.

Marked as a critical juncture for 6G development, 2025 is considered by the industry as the inaugural year for 6G standardization, where significant strides will be made in advancing globally unified standards. Under the theme "Fostering Innovation, Sharing the Future," this year's conference aimed to start by promoting the formation of a global consensus on 6G standards, further moving towards industry-wide collaboration and co-creation to achieve in-depth value mining and creation.

Attending the opening ceremony and delivering speeches were: Zhou Hongbo, Member of the Standing Committee of the Jiangsu Provincial Party Committee and Secretary of the Nanjing Municipal Party Committee; Zhao Yan, Vice Governor of Jiangsu Province; Sun Youhong, Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and President of Southeast University; Qiu Gang, Deputy Director-General and First-Rank Inspector of the Department of High and New Technology Development and Industrialization, Ministry of Science and Technology; Wu Hequan, Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering; and Robert Schober, Academician of the Canadian Academy of Engineering. You Xiaohu, Academician of CAS, Professor at Southeast University, Director of Purple Mountain Laboratories, Vice President and Secretary-General of FuTURE Forum, delivered a keynote report.

Academician Wu Hequan pointed out that 6G must not only prove its irreplaceability in special scenarios where 5G and other wireless technologies struggle, but also demonstrate its effectiveness and economic viability in mass consumer essential needs and numerous industrial applications, even for traditional services. This, he stated, is the true value of 6G.

Wu Hequan, Academician, Chinese Academy of Engineering

You Xiaohu stated that the wireless network architecture for 6G is accelerating its shift from "base station-centric" to "user-centric." He proposed a new architecture and fundamental theory – Cell-Free Space-Time Coding – which will support the future development trend of decentralized networks and multi-point collaboration. He emphasized the need to break through traditional communication paradigms at the level of system architecture and fundamental theory to lay a solid foundation for future ubiquitous intelligent connectivity.

You Xiaohu, Academician of CAS, Professor at Southeast University, Director of Purple Mountain Laboratories, Vice President and Secretary-General of FuTURE Forum

Zhang Xinsheng, Advisor to MIIT Communication Science and Technology Commission

Conference Co-Chair, Academician Robert Schober of the Canadian Academy of Engineering, stated in a video speech that through this 6G conference, many IEEE members have contributed numerous cutting-edge ideas and latest achievements.

Robert Schober, President of IEEE ComSoc, a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of the Engineering Institute of Canada, and a Member of the German National Academy of Science and Engineering, IEEE Fellow

Khaled Ben Letaief of United States NAE indicated that 6G will usher in an era of "Ubiquitous Intelligence," with the most significant transformation lying in the construction of AI-native wireless networks. This is not merely an innovation in network architecture but will also promote the deep integration of communication, computing, and sensing, reshaping the future of wireless communications.

Khaled Ben Letaief, Academician of United States NAE, Senior Advisor to the President of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), IEEE Fellow

The conference attracted extensive participation from numerous heavyweight experts across industry, academia, and research in China, facilitating broad intellectual exchange and discussion, and yielding a wealth of insightful outcomes. Several academicians from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Chinese Academy of Engineering, including Wu Hequan, Liu Yunjie, You Xiaohu, Wu Jiangxing, Yin Hao, Mao Junfa, Cui Tiejun, Wang Huaimin, and Zhang Ping, offered suggestions and shared profound insights on the forward directions and strategic layout of 6G. Representatives from leading industry enterprises, such as Luan Xiaowei, Vice President of China Telecom; Hao Liqian, Vice President of China Unicom; and Wang Xiaoyun, Chief Scientist of China Mobile Group, also shared their latest thoughts and important progress on how to build 6G to higher standards.

Luan Xiaowei, Vice President, China Telecom

Hao Liqian, Vice President, China Unicom

Wang Xiaoyun, Chief Scientist, China Mobile

As a renowned global academic brand conference in the 6G field, the event brought together world-class experts and scholars from countries and regions including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Sweden, Greece, Belgium, Portugal, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and the UAE. It established a diverse exchange platform spanning regions, cultures, and fields, fully reflecting the open pattern and cooperative spirit of global collaborative development for 6G. The conference also invited Wen Ku, Chairman of the China Communications Standards Association; 3GPP working group chairs; and representatives from international renowned research initiatives such as the EU's Hexa-X-II project, Finland's 6G Flagship program, Japan's Beyond 5G Promotion Consortium (XGMF), and South Korea's 6G Forum. They engaged in two roundtable dialogues focusing on 6G technology and standards, international cooperation, and the industry ecosystem. These discussions shared in-depth thoughts from top global forces on frontier technology paths, standard coordination mechanisms, and industry ecosystem cultivation, also conveying a strong signal of deepening global 6G cooperation and gradual consensus convergence.

Wen Ku, Chairman, China Communications Standards Association

During the opening ceremony, Fu Jun, Deputy Secretary-General of the FuTURE Forum, released the "2025 Mobile Communication Series White Papers." These white papers focus on several currently most-watched frontier areas, including 6G key technologies, millimeter-wave and terahertz communications, digital low-altitude economy, and vehicular networking (V2X), systematically outlining the development trends and challenges of related technologies.

Fu Jun, Deputy Secretary-General, FuTURE Forum

Starting from the initial stages of 4G R&D, the FuTURE Forum has been releasing annual white papers for twenty consecutive years. This release aims to provide the industry with a systematic thinking framework and technical path reference as the global standardization process enters a critical phase.

Hong Wei, Chairman, FuTURE Forum MMW Working Group; Chief Professor, Southeast University

Chih-Lin I, Chairman, FuTURE Forum 5G/6G SIG Working Group; Chief Scientist, China Mobile Research Institute

Li Yan, Chairman, FuTURE Forum IoV Joint Working Group; Global Vice President, Qualcomm

Bi Qi, Chairman, FuTURE Forum Digital Low Altitude Working Group; Chief Scientist, China Telecom

To further fulfill the mission of "taking the lead in promoting the integration of scientific and technological innovation with industrial innovation," the Purple Mountain Science City has formulated the vision of building a "City of 6G." Tang Xiaonan, Deputy Director of the Jiangning Economic and Technological Development Zone, presented an introduction covering aspects such as 6G technology research, achievement transformation, and the "City of 6G" construction plan. He expressed the commitment to accelerate the cultivation of future industries led by 6G technology and sincerely invited all sectors to participate in building the "City of 6G."

As a national strategic scientific force and a "pioneer" in 6G technological innovation, the Purple Mountain Laboratories publicly unveiled for the first time during the conference its newly constructed world's first 6G Integrated Communication, Computing, and Sensing (ICAS) field trial network. This facility conducts technical verification tests centered around the six major application scenarios of 6G. It has internationally pioneered the achievement of ultimate connection capabilities that are 10-100 times greater than 5G, along with new high-precision target sensing capabilities. It has also taken the lead in conducting application demonstrations and commercial pilot projects for 6G in areas like low-altitude inspection, low-altitude logistics, and low-altitude security, providing crucial support for China's continuous advancement in 6G technological innovation and the cultivation of the 6G future industry.

Leveraging the extensive exchange and cooperation platform built by the conference, the Purple Mountain Laboratories signed agreements with Tonghao Low-Altitude and Galaxy Space to jointly promote the exploration of 6G applications in forward-looking fields such as emergency communications and the low-altitude economy. The National University Information Communication Regional Technology Transfer and Transformation Center (Jiangsu) signed agreements with China Telecom, China Unicom, and China Mobile to jointly build industry-academia-research collaboration platforms, focusing on 6G and mobile intelligence technologies to accelerate the commercialization of scientific research achievements.

During the conference, two new working groups were officially established under the FuTURE Forum: the Cell-Free Network Working Group and the New Mid-Frequency Working Group.

Furthermore, the conference featured parallel sessions and exhibitions focusing on multiple directions, including the integration of communication and AI, integrated sensing and communication, space-air-ground-sea integration, network architecture, millimeter-wave and terahertz communication, and network resilience, providing a multi-dimensional presentation of the latest progress and application scenarios in 6G technology.