Cristiano Amon, the chief executive of Qualcomm, says that the first round of 6G hardware may appear before the current decade is out — though they will not be units “sold in stores,” he said.
The message: real 6G phones are not around the corner, but the competition to prove out the tech in live environments is heating up.
What Amon actually promised about early 6G hardware
At the company’s Snapdragon Summit, Amon surmised that the first 6G devices would serve as a testbed for partners to work out networks and applications. “Pre‑commercial” signals prototypes and developer kits — the type of gear used by operators, device makers and app developers to prove out features and work out kinks in power, thermals and radio behavior.
Amon linked the 6G push to the advent of AI assistants that communicate with users across phones, cars, wearables and PCs. The pitch is in line with a wide industry view that 6G will be designed for AI‑native networking — where the models reside on devices and at the edge, and the network intelligently orchestrates computation, caching and sensing.
Why this timeline matters for 6G development and trials
Prototypes coming this decade toward its end jibe with the way cellular standards develop. 3GPP is currently doing 5G‑Advanced work (Release 18 and beyond), which sets down innovations like network automation, positioning, and uplink boosts laid as the foundation for what will be 6G. The next phase tends to take mobile systems from study items to normative specs, with device makers getting started ahead of this freeze to help frame a final standard and prove silicon.
This cadence echoes that of the 5G era, when test devices landed in operator labs years before mainstream phones were available for purchase. That head start enables carriers to model coverage, plan spectrum use and de‑risk their capital spending. It also informs chipset manufacturers on RF front‑end complexity and power budgets well before mass production.
What 6G will do, theoretically speaking
There is no existing spec yet, but industry roadmaps from Nokia Bell Labs, Samsung Research and NTT Docomo are similar: radically higher peak throughput, lower latency as well as more predictable latency and latency guarantees, more accurate device positioning and integrated sensing. Lab aims cited by vendor papers have been way beyond what this year’s 5G can do: peak rates and, under certain conditions, sub‑millisecond control loops for industrial and robotics use cases.
“The AI‑native” angle is just as critical here. 6G is anticipated to bake learning into RAT (Radio Access Technology), regularizing beams, handovers and interference with on‑device and edge inference. That could make for richer mixed‑reality experiences, collaborative autonomous systems and new man‑and‑machine interfaces — think voice, gaze or gesture as first‑class inputs instead of novelties.
Real‑world demand is heading in that direction. Ericsson’s Mobility Report depicts 5G subscriptions in the billions and data traffic continuing to ascend at a double‑digit pace annually. As uplink‑heavy applications such as live creation, sensor streams and vehicle‑to‑everything take off, the argument for a more capacious air interface gets even more compelling.
Spectrum, standards, and likely roadblocks for 6G
The airwaves are where 6G soars or withers. Look for a blend: upper mid‑band (often discussed in the 7–15 GHz range) to strike the right mix between capacity and coverage, accompanied by sub‑terahertz bands for extreme throughput over short distances. Regulators will have to synchronize spectrum assignments in order not to chop up the environment, and device vendors need to corral the difficult propagation using sophisticated beamforming, massive MIMO and repeaters.
Power usage is the other elephant in the room. Millimeter‑wave was a lesson to the industry about how fast radio chains can eat your batteries. 6G will mandate even smarter duty‑cycling, AI‑helped scheduling and advancements in RF front‑end efficiency if headline speeds are going to be delivered alongside all‑day endurance.
As for standards, ITU has defined the framework of next‑generation mobile capabilities and 3GPP releases will freeze technical content. That includes support from vendors — including Ericsson, Nokia and Qualcomm — as well as operators and research institutions to cover topics including joint communication‑sensing, user‑centric cell‑free architectures, and integrated satellite‑terrestrial systems.
What this means for consumers and OEMs in the 6G era
First 6G devices won’t resemble smooth consumer phones. Think clunky prototypes, plug‑in modules and reference designs in field trials everywhere from campuses, stadiums and factories to city streets. Commercial products usually follow after networks, spectrum and silicon have settled — which historically has taken a few product cycles.
In the meantime, 5G‑Advanced will do the heavy lifting. A bunch of those features — such as reduced capability (RedCap) IoT, enhanced positioning, network slicing, and smarter uplink — are rolling into devices and networks already; they help close that gap 6G is supposed to occupy. For most consumers, the near‑term improvements will be modest yet meaningful, and the infrastructure for 6G takes place mostly behind the scenes.
The upshot: Amon’s prediction represents a vote of confidence that the silicon and the ecosystem are good enough now to come out of the lab. Pre‑commercial 6G hardware this decade would represent the beginning of real‑world learning curves — the step before any sort of consumer 6G hits.