Researchers say 6G will stream human brain-caliber AI to wireless devices
As 5G networks continue to expand in cities and countries across the globe, key researchers have already started to lay the foundation for 6G deployments roughly a decade from now. This time, they say, the key selling point won’t be faster phones or wireless home internet service, but rather a range of advanced industrial and scientific applications — including wireless, real-time remote access to human brain-level AI computing.
That’s one of the more interesting takeaways from a new IEEE paper published by NYU Wireless’s pioneering researcher Dr. Ted Rappaport and colleagues, focused on applications for 100 Gigahertz (GHz) to 3 Terahertz (THz) wireless spectrum. As prior cellular generations have continually expanded the use of radio spectrum from microwave frequencies up to millimeter wave frequencies, that “submillimeter wave” range is the last collection of seemingly safe, non-ionizing frequencies that can be used for communications before hitting optical, x-ray, gamma ray, and cosmic ray wavelengths.
Dr. Rappaport’s team says that while 5G networks should eventually be able to deliver 100Gbps speeds, signal densification technology doesn’t yet exist to eclipse that rate — even on today’s millimeter wave bands, one of which offers access to bandwidth that’s akin to a 500-lane highway. Consequently, opening up the terahertz frequencies will provide gigantic swaths of new bandwidth for wireless use, enabling unthinkable quantities and types of data to be transferred in only a second.
The most relatable one would enable wireless devices to remotely transfer quantities of computational data comparable to a human brain in real time. As the researchers explain it, “terahertz frequencies will likely be the first wireless spectrum that can provide the real time computations needed for wireless remoting of human cognition.” Put another way, a wireless drone with limited on-board computing could be remotely guided by a server-sized AI as capable as a top human pilot, or a building could be assembled by machinery directed by computers far from the construction site.
Some of that might sound familiar, as similar remote control concepts are already in the works for 5G — but with human operators.
