Jio Collaborating With Finland University To Explore 6G And Other Digital Opportunities

Jio Platforms has signed a strategic relationship with the University of Oulu in Finland to conduct research and standardisation-related activities in 6G technology.

For data networks, 5G enables faster speeds, lower latency, and more capacity, as well as allows for huge machine-to-machine connectivity and the creation of virtual networks via network slicing. In the case of 6G, it extends digitisation through novel features such as intelligent surfaces and increased capacities via Terahertz frequencies, which build on top of 5G. It is expected that both 5G and 6G will coexist, covering a wide spectrum of consumer and business applications.

According to the Finnish university, the newly announced collaboration will encourage entrepreneurship by bringing together a world-class pool of expertise from industry and academia, involving aerial and space communication, holographic beamforming, 3D connected intelligence in cybersecurity, microelectronics and photonics.

The university stated that the collaboration will help the defence, automotive, white goods, industrial machinery, consumer goods, efficient manufacturing, unique personal smart device environments, and experiences like urban computing and autonomous traffic settings compete with 6G equipped products.

However, Jio’s senior vice president Aayush Bhatnagar while announcing the collaboration news, posted on LinkedIn: “Today at Jio Platforms, we enter into a strategic partnership with the University of Oulu, Finland - to accelerate research and standardisation in 6G technology.

Jio already has significant assets in its indigenous 5G technology stack which have been deployed at scale, and with this partnership, we will build upon our capabilities to fuel the next wave of innovation.”

Similarly, Professor Matti Latva-aho, director of the 6G Flagship said, “We are delighted to deepen our collaboration with Jio Estonia,” and it explained that the University of Oulu focuses on wireless communications leading to 6G technologies as the leader of the world's first significant 6G research effort."

According to Prof Matti, “We are looking forward to collaborating with Jio Estonia and the entire Reliance Group on targeted research initiatives that will enable future wireless end-to-end solutions for a wide range of end-user requirements."

Taavi Kotka, CEO of Jio Estonia said that in India, Jio has over 400 million members, and their experience suggests that increasing capacity to transport big amounts of data is becoming increasingly important. Particularly in light of the growth of digital services and virtual worlds, the executive added.

He also said: "With this collaboration with the University of Oulu, we can make sure that we keep growing and developing as a world region of the future."

In addition to research and development of the technology, this relationship will help Jio expand its 5G capabilities and investigate use cases in the 6G era. Jio, Bharti Airtel, and Vodafone Idea (Vi) are currently testing locally relevant 5G use cases with the government-allocated 5G trial spectrum. Airtel and Vi have also worked with businesses to test 5G use cases.

However, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) organised 6 academia-led task teams under the Technology Innovation Group or TIG in December last year to concentrate on various areas of 6G technology. The DoT, through its innovation group, is requesting various stakeholders and partners to assist in identifying technologies that are now being developed in India and could be used in 6G so that they can be pushed for research and development grants.