Most of the world is still trying to get proper 5G coverage, but some companies Samsung and SK Telecom are already leaning hard into what comes next. The two Korean tech giants have reportedly signed a new agreement to co-develop 6G technologies, and the focus is clear: let AI manage the network.
The partnership is all about turning future radio access networks — the part that connects phones to cell towers — into intelligent systems that can adjust to whatever’s happening around them. Samsung Research and SKT’s Network Technology Office will handle the heavy lifting, with Samsung bringing hardware know-how and SKT supplying real-world network conditions to test against.
So what exactly will AI do in a 6G network? The companies highlighted three big pieces:
• AI-based channel estimation: software that predicts signal distortion and fixes it before users notice a thing — especially useful in dense cities where wireless signals bounce everywhere.
• Distributed MIMO: letting antennas from multiple sites work together instead of acting like isolated islands, giving stronger and wider coverage.
• AI-driven scheduling and routing: smarter decisions on where to push data when the network gets crowded, reducing bottlenecks.
Samsung has been laying the groundwork for 6G since 2019 and already has major network clients like Verizon, Airtel, and O2. SK Telecom, meanwhile, offers a huge live testing environment inside South Korea. That should help take ideas out of the lab and into the real world faster.
Both companies are part of the AI-RAN Alliance, a global group trying to standardize this new approach. One of their proposals — using AI for channel estimation — has already been accepted as an official work item, and early research results were shown off this month.
Commercial 6G isn’t expected until around 2028, but this collaboration is aimed at making sure that when the switch eventually flips, the networks are a lot smarter than anything running today. Instead of just chasing higher theoretical speeds, Samsung and SKT want 6G to feel better in everyday situations — crowded stadiums, tall office towers, or anywhere 5G struggles.
If things pan out the way they hope, you might not care what version of “G” your phone says — because the connection just works.
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