Japan and Finland Will Work Together to Develop 6G Cellular Technology

Industry groups from Japan and Finland will work together to research and develop sixth-generation (6G) cellular technology. This is expected to help create new standards for the electronics market segment, which is currently dominated by Chinese companies.

The Japanese Beyond 5G Promotion Consortium and Finnish group 6G Flagship will be involved in the deal. It is expected that the Finnish Nokia will also take part in the development of technology.

The deal will be announced at the Western Global Digital Summit 2021, co-hosted by Nikkei and the Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.

The initiative follows a $4.5 billion Japanese-American agreement to develop next-generation communications technology. It was announced back in April. Increased international cooperation will allow it to compete on an equal footing with China, effectively setting international standards for communications.

Beyond 5G Promotion Consortium, which intends to organize the commercial application of 6G in the 2030s, including the University of Tokyo and major Japanese telecommunications companies, including Nippon Telegraph & Telephone, NTT Docomo, KDDI, SoftBank Corp. and Rakuten Mobile.

The Finnish 6G Flagship group is led by the University of Oulu. On the U.S. side, Cisco and Intel intend to cooperate with Japan.

To date, Japanese developers have too few 5G-related patents compared to foreign companies.

For example, NTT Docomo owns 6% of 5G-related developments, while the U.S. Qualcomm and China’s Huawei own 10% each. Japanese authorities plan to have at least 10% of patents related to 6G technology and 30% or more of related hardware and software.