Southeast Asian countries are investing to expand their contributions to 6G standardization
Japan and South Korea have an advantage over other countries in the region in 6G
Funding and regulatory challenges could affect Southeast Asian countries' 6G rollout efforts.
As the global race towards 6G intensifies, Southeast Asian countries have begun making great efforts to increase their contributions to the development of 6G standards, with analysts telling Fierce that South Korea and Japan are ahead of the pack.
“There are many countries in Asia that want to make an impact with 6G, with Japan and South Korea perhaps further ahead than others,” said Shiv Putcha, founder and principal analyst at Mandala Insights.
“The opportunity for these countries is big. Japan and South Korea have telecom vendors but they are smaller. 6G gives them the means to get back in the game,” he continued.
Swati Aruna, senior research analyst for telecommunications, Asia Pacific, IDC, agreed: “Interest in 6G is prominent in the Asia Pacific region, with China, Japan and South Korea expected to allocate significant resources and investments to 6G research and development,” she said.
For example, South Korea recently released its K-Network 2030 plan, proposing to launch 6G around 2028, while Japan has established a roughly $450 million fund for 6G research.
Meanwhile, India released the “Bharat 6G Vision” document, which targets launching services by 2030. Additionally, Vietnam's Ministry of Information and Communications recently established a 6G Steering Committee to enable the country to launch 6G by 2028, closer to launch in developed parts of the world.
“By participating in 6G standardization, countries can help shape the development of technologies essential to future communications systems and ensure they are well-positioned to benefit from the next wave of innovation,” said Gareth Owen, associate director at Counterpoint Research. “This engagement is essential to align technological evolution with national interests, stimulating innovation and ultimately driving economic growth through the deployment of advanced communications networks.”
We are also seeing increased collaboration between local telecommunications companies to advance 6G goals: LG and KT, for example, recently joined forces to “take the lead in 6G mobile communications technology and strengthen our leadership in global 6G standardization.”
Another example is that Singapore's SingTel and South Korea's SK Telecom signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to build next-generation telecommunications networks and “explore the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and orchestration tools, deepen expertise in network virtualization and other technologies, and lay the foundation for the transition to 6G.”
Advantages of Japanese and Korean vendors
In addition to their commitment and financial strength, the presence of major vendors such as NEC and Fujitsu in Japan and Samsung in South Korea also helps them gain an edge over other countries in the region. This is important because vendors play a key role in the development of new standards.
“Samsung is a good example of a vendor that can benefit significantly from 6G and increase its market share. In Japan, NEC and Fujitsu are examples of vendors that have large telecom operations but have not seen much traction outside of Japan,” Puccia explained.
hurdle
However, despite the increased activity, other Southeast Asian countries face several challenges, including funding, regulations and policy changes needed to foster collaboration between telcos and academia.
“Southeast Asian countries and even India have limited resources compared to Japan and South Korea. Forget about the US and China, which have large R&D budgets and government support for telecom R&D. These countries would be wise to explore niches in emerging 6G standards or invest in research that will make 6G relevant for their own markets,” Putcha concluded.
