The department of telecommunications on Monday announced an alliance of industry leaders and academia to drive innovation in the next generation wireless technology as the government aims for 10% of 6G patents by 2030.
The government is also eyeing to launch the 6G network by 2030.
The 15-member Bharat 6G Alliance will be led by TCS chief operating office N Ganapathy Subramaniam.
Union communications minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said the 6G alliance is basically a body created by the industry, academia and the government so that all work related to 6G development could be done in a very methodical, proper and systematic way.
India has so far acquired over 200 patents of 6G technology and the number is increasing every week, he stressed. “We should keep a minimum target that 10% of the 6G IPR (intellectual property rights) are from India by the time we reach 2029 or 2030,” the minister added.
Commenting on it, telecom secretary K Rajaraman said the task of coordinating, connecting and integrating is what probably the Bharat 6G Alliance should do, so that India’s presence is felt on the global telecommunication map.
Apart from N Ganapathy Subramaniam, the alliance will include Jagbir Singh, CTO of Vodafone Idea; Rajkumar Upadhyay, CEO of C-DoT; Kumar N Sivarajan, CTO of Tejas Networks; Jagdish Mitra; chief strategy officer of Tech Mahindra; and Ayush Bhatnagar, senior vice president of Jio.
Alliance chairman Subramaniam said, “In our initial discussions regarding 6G, the primary focus areas will be how to give highly differentiated experience for sectors such as health and education; how entertainment is going to consumed and how we increase productivity in everything that we do.”
The 6G network will provide more reliable and affordable solutions with speeds almost 100 times faster than 5G.
In March, the government had launched a vision document for 6G services in the country. The 6G vision document highlighted a roadmap to the launch of 6G services, recommendations from task forces, financial support required for projects and the opening of spectrum bands.
The alliance under the 6G Apex Council will have a general body, governing council and several working groups. The focus of the alliance will be to help grow 5G advanced and 6G intellectual properties (IPs) and essential patents from India, build 5G advanced/6G products and solutions, support India’s participation in the 3GPP standards and to enable market access for startups.
Nod to two 6G projects
The government also approved Rs 240.5 crore under the Telecom Technology Development Fund for two 6G projects–a 6G THz testbed with orbital angular momentum and multiplexing through a consortium of SAMEER, IIT Madras, IIT Guwahati and IIT Patna; and an advance optical communication testbed with consortium members IIT Madras, IIT Delhi, Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology , Delhi.
Further, under the Digital Communication Innovation Square, a grant of Rs 48 crore will also be given to 66 startups and MSMEs.
