Last modified on July 23, 2024

EU-US Beyond 5G/6G Roadmap

23 July 2024

This document is a comprehensive set of critical strategic reflections and recommendations for 6G networks and services, capturing the views and priorities from Next G Alliance and the SNS JU. This document proposes a roadmap for future opportunities through EU and US funding instruments. It also aims to provide directions for collaboration opportunities that will go beyond the scope of such funding instruments, assisting the academic and business stakeholders between the two sides of the Atlantic to identify mutually beneficial opportunities.

This document analyzes six promising collaboration areas between the EU and the US for 2025 and beyond:

1) Work jointly to address environmental, social, and economic sustainability goals and work toward reduced footprints (Sustainable 6G) as well as enabled benefits, a.k.a. handprints (6G for sustainability)

2) Engage in semiconductor research related to the use of microelectronics for wireless communication, especially in the mid-band to sub-THz range

3) Enable disaggregated 6G cloud architectures with standardized interfaces between different stakeholders.

4) Strengthen a collaborative EU-US research and innovation environment for open network solutions where new results will progressively reach a higher Technology Readiness Level (TRL).

5) Cooperate to set the main trends in AI-native air interface and network/device collaboration, including i) energy efficient AI/ML research, ii) establishment of reference datasets and AI/ML models, and iii) trustworthy AI/ML and privacy policy collaborations.

6) Join forces to institute new resilience mechanisms for 6G networks, from the supply chain to the recovery after attacks. Areas of collaboration could include developing new security expectations for 6G equipment and software, including employment of associated methods for detecting, preventing, and responding to attacks.