The race towards 6G is quietly picking up pace, and India’s two largest telecom operators are already at the table. Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel have begun participating in early global discussions around 6G ecosystem development, even as commercial rollouts remain a few years away.
Chipmaker Qualcomm, which is shaping much of the early 6G roadmap, has set its sights on commercialisation from 2029. 6G is being designed as an AI-native network from the ground up, capable of learning, adapting, and optimising itself in real time. This means smarter spectrum usage, intelligent traffic handling, and better energy efficiency than anything previous generations offered.
Global collaborators already in the mix include Samsung, Nokia, Ericsson, Cisco, alongside Jio and Airtel. Early-stage demonstrations are planned during the development phase, intended to lay the groundwork for scalable deployment models by the close of this decade.
For India, getting involved at this stage matters. It gives operators the opportunity to work on interoperability, network architecture, and spectrum strategy well before commercial timelines arrive.
