Huawei kicked off a PR push in Australia aimed at ensuring it has a seat at the table in discussions on deploying 6G technology and conducting R&D with the government, The Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) reported.

Jeremy Mitchell, the company’s director of corporate affairs for Australia, told the newspaper: “The conversation we want to have with the Australian government is what do we do when 6G or 7G comes, because like it or not, Huawei or another Chinese company will be the leader in this area”.

He said 6G is at a very early stage of development, but it’s important to get in now to understand where it is going, SMH wrote. “We would like to work with the government to ensure Australia has access to the best technology, but do so in a way which gives security agencies confidence in terms of risk mitigation.”

Core versus RAN
Mitchell explained working with the government at the beginning of 6G development would prove security agencies’s view there was no way to split sensitive core network and radio access functions was “wrong”, and hoped the government would take a different approach with the technology, the newspaper stated.

Australia banned Huawei and ZTE from 5G work in 2018 due to national security concerns.

In 2019, Huawei was one of the first companies to start talking about 6G.

It is expected to take a number of years before formal specifications for the next-generation technology are formed, but momentum around 6G is growing and major industry players expect a launch in 2030.