China is already looking beyond 5G. A government-backed lab called Purple Mountain Laboratories has announced a major step forward in the race to develop 6G – the next generation of mobile networks. According to their team, led by Professor You Xiaohu, they’ve achieved wireless transmission speeds of 206.25 gigabits per second in a lab setting. That’s fast. Really fast.
To put it in perspective, 5G — which many of us are still waiting to fully experience — is already about 20 times faster than 4G. Now imagine 6G taking that to a whole new level. We’re talking speeds that could support incredibly high-definition video, real-time virtual reality, and things we haven’t even imagined yet.
Who’s Behind the Breakthrough?
This record-setting speed came out of a collaboration between:
- Purple Mountain Laboratories
- China Mobile (one of the country’s biggest telecom companies)
- Fudan University (a top university in China)
They achieved this using a specific frequency range called the terahertz band — a stretch of the spectrum that sits between microwave and infrared. This band is key to reaching the ultra-high speeds that 6G promises.
So, What Is 6G Exactly?
That’s still being figured out. Unlike 5G, which already has global standards and is rolling out in many places, 6G is still in the early experimental phase. The world hasn’t yet agreed on how 6G should work — from the frequencies it will use to the technical setup of the system.
Groups like 3GPP (the global body that helped set the stage for 4G and 5G) haven’t finalized a 6G roadmap. Companies like Huawei expect 6G to start becoming a reality around 2030, while Ericsson believes early standards could be seen as soon as 2027.
Where Does China Stand?
China is ahead of the curve when it comes to infrastructure. By late 2021, the country had built about 1.4 million 5G base stations— the most in the world. But the everyday use of 5G is still catching up. The industry is searching for that one big feature — the “killer app” — that will make 5G essential for everyone.
That’s where 6G could come in. If speeds like 206 Gbps become the norm, it might open up entirely new possibilities in medicine, gaming, education, and even how we interact with the digital world around us.
While 6G might still be years away, China’s breakthrough is a reminder that the race to define the next era of wireless communication is already well underway.
Source: https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3162411/chinese-lab-says-it-…
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