NVIDIA announced this week a new 6G research platform that, according to the company, will empower researchers with a “novel approach to develop the next phase of wireless technology.”
Ansys, Arm, ETH Zurich, Fujitsu, Keysight, Nokia, Northeastern University, Rohde & Schwarz, Samsung, SoftBank Corp. and Viavi are among its first adopters and ecosystem partners.
The NVIDIA 6G Research Cloud aims to allow organisations to accelerate the development of the next generation of network technologies and lay the foundation for a hyper-intelligent world supported by autonomous vehicles, smart spaces and a wide range of extended reality and immersive education experiences and collaborative robots.
To access the platform, researchers can sign up for the NVIDIA 6G Developer Program.
“The massive increase in connected devices and host of new applications in 6G will require a vast leap in wireless spectral efficiency in radio communications,” said Ronnie Vasishta, senior vice president of telecom at NVIDIA. “Key to achieving this will be the use of AI, a software-defined, full-RAN reference stack and next-generation digital twin technology.”
According to the company, the NVIDIA 6G Research Cloud platform consists of three foundational elements:
- NVIDIA Aerial Omniverse Digital Twin for 6G: A reference application and developer sample that enables physically accurate simulations of complete 6G systems – from a single tower to a city scale. It incorporates software-defined RAN and user-equipment simulators, along with realistic terrain and object properties. Using the Omniverse Aerial Digital Twin, researchers will be able to simulate and build base-station algorithms based on site-specific data and train models in real time to improve transmission efficiency.
- NVIDIA Aerial CUDA-Accelerated RAN: A software-defined, full-RAN stack that offers flexibility for researchers to customise, program and test future networks in real time.
- NVIDIA Sionna Neural Radio Framework: A framework that provides integration with popular frameworks like PyTorch and TensorFlow. This also includes NVIDIA Sionna, the link-level research tool for AI/ML-based wireless simulations.
Partners Excited for 6G Initiative
Some of the first companies to join the research platform have already voiced their goals with the new initiative.
“The future convergence of 6G and AI holds the promise of a transformative technological landscape,” said Charlie Zhang, senior vice president of Samsung Research America. “This will bring seamless connectivity and intelligent systems that will redefine our interactions with the digital world, ushering in an era of unparalleled innovation and connectivity.”
Another one to celebrate the launch was Kailash Narayanan, president and general manager of the Communications Solutions Group at Keysight. “We are thrilled to be one of the first solution partners announced for NVIDIA’s new 6G Research Cloud platform,” he said.
“Access to wireless-specific design tools is limited yet needed to build robust AI. Keysight is pleased to bring its wireless network expertise to enable the next generation of innovation in 6G communications networks,” the executive added.
“Ansys is committed to advancing the mission of the 6G Research Cloud by seamlessly integrating Ansys Perceive EM solver into the Omniverse ecosystem,” said Shawn Carpenter, program director of 5G/6G and space at Ansys, another early partner in the research centre.
“Perceive EM revolutionises the creation of digital twins for 6G systems. Undoubtedly, the convergence of NVIDIA and Ansys technologies will pave the way toward AI-enabled 6G communication systems.”
