China Leads 6G Development with Trials and Breakthroughs Ahead of 2030 Deployment
The Asia-Pacific region is expected to enter a 6G upgrade cycle by 2026, with initial deployments projected for 2030. China is at the forefront, completing numerous 6G trials in immersive communication and tunable high-speed transmission.
China Mobile is facilitating testing of future 6G technologies at its Beijing lab. In neighboring countries, NTT Docomo has doubled 6G throughput in an AI trial, while SKT and Samsung are collaborating on 6G MIMO and AI-RAN.
The FTTR market in China is growing, with 11% of China Mobile's gigabit customers utilizing FTTR by the end of 2024. Huawei is central to China's AI sector, planning to double production of its Ascend chips in 2026 and competing with Nvidia.
Telcos are increasingly adopting agentic AI, with 48% in customer service and 41% in network management. The data center sector in Asia is experiencing significant M&A activity, highlighted by Blackstone's acquisition of Air Trunk and Spark's divestiture of its data center business.
