Exploring the road to 6G: ABC — foundation for intelligent mobile networks

The 5th generation (5G) mobile networks has been put into services across a number of markets, which aims at providing subscribers with high bit rates, low latency, high capacity, many new services and vertical applications. Therefore the research and development on 6G have been put on the agenda. Regarding demands and characteristics of future 6G, artificial intelligence (A), big data (B) and cloud computing (C) will play indispensable roles in achieving the highest efficiency and the largest benefits. Interestingly, the initials of these three aspects remind us the significance of vitamin ABC to human body. In this article we specifically expound on the three elements of ABC and relationships in between. We analyze the basic characteristics of wireless big data (WBD) and the corresponding technical action in A and C, which are the high dimensional feature and spatial separation, the predictive ability, and the characteristics of knowledge. Based on the abilities of WBD, a new learning approach for wireless AI called knowledge + data-driven deep learning (KD-DL) method, and a layered computing architecture of mobile network integrating cloud/edge/terminal computing, is proposed, and their achievable efficiency is discussed. These progress will be conducive to the development of future 6G.