Although 5G phones are just starting to go mainstream this year, Xiaomi has already started pre-research into the next generation of mobile connectivity, according to the smartphone company’s co-founder and chairman Lei Jun.
Photo credit: Xiaomi
This wasn’t the first time Jun mentioned 6G. In May, during China’s annual legislative meetings known as the Two Sessions, the entrepreneur prepared four proposals for China’s next five-year plan. One of them is making satellite internet a strategic industry by including private companies, which would be a step toward developing 6G communications.
Jun later clarified that Xiaomi has no plans to launch satellites itself. But as he told local media on Sunday, 6G will require devices that support the base stations and satellites behind the new wireless standard.
But the concept of what 6G is remains vague, with no set standards defining it. Still, 6G is slowly becoming a buzzword among Chinese tech firms. Other companies already looking into 6G are telecom equipment maker ZTE and China Telecom, one of China’s three state-owned telecom carriers, which signed an agreement in May to research 6G together.
Both smartphone maker Oppo and Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei have also signaled their interest in the tech. China first started looking into 6G in 2018, making it one of the first countries to do so.
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Editing by Miguel Cordon
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