China Accelerates 6G Hegemony Race with Olympics... "Simultaneous Streaming of 10,000 High-Definition Videos"

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Hyunjung] According to a report by the Hong Kong daily South China Morning Post (SCMP) on the 10th (local time), China is accelerating its competition for 6G technology supremacy in conjunction with the Beijing Winter Olympics.

According to the report, the aerospace engineering research team at Tsinghua University in Beijing announced on the same day that they were able to simultaneously stream over 10,000 high-resolution real-time video feeds through an experimental wireless line installed at the Beijing Winter Olympics venue last month. The research team explained, "Using vortex millimeter waves, a rapidly rotating form of ultra-high frequency waves, we transmitted 1 terabyte (TB) of data over a distance of 1 km (3,300 feet) in one second," describing it as a transmission technology 10 to 20 times faster than existing 5G.

Researchers from Shanghai Jiao Tong University and China Unicom evaluated that this enables the use of vortex waves of a ‘completely different dimension’ from those used in wireless communications last century. They claimed, "This experiment signifies that China’s potential core technologies related to 6G are leading the world."

Existing mobile devices communicate using electromagnetic waves that spread like ripples in a pond. Information is represented by the two-dimensional movement of these waves. According to the researchers, vortex waves have a three-dimensional form similar to a tornado, which increases the communication bandwidth.

Vortex waves were first revealed in 1909 by British physicist John Henry Poynting, but their utilization has been known to be difficult. In Europe, related communication experiments were first conducted in the 1990s, and in 2020, Japan’s Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT) achieved speeds of 200 Gbps over 10 meters. The biggest problem in this process was that as the size of the rotating wave increased with distance and the signal weakened, high-speed data transmission became difficult. The Chinese team explained that they solved this challenge by developing special transmitters and high-performance receivers. Although the commercialization of 6G is expected around 2030, there is also speculation that China may adopt related technologies earlier, supported by research in military technologies.

Meanwhile, according to a survey released in September last year by the Japanese market research company Cyber Creative Institute, China owns more than 40% of global 6G-related patent applications. The United States followed with 35%, while Europe (9%) and South Korea (4%) are also competing.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.