AI as an Essential Element of a Green 6G

Since the very beginning of global R&D activities on fifth generation wireless communications (5G), IEEEPAR energy-efficiency (EE) has been considered explicitly as one of the essential key performance indicators for wireless networks, and attracted much attention from academia and industry. The basic concepts, fundamental work, and various advanced techniques towards energy-efficient wireless communications were extensively studied and pursued in previous research efforts [items 1)–4) in the Appendix] The anticipated power consumption increase of 5G (due to the introduction of a massive number of antennas, much larger bandwidths, and much denser base stations) has forced standardization bodies like 3GPP to seriously consider the energy-savings capabilities needed to achieve a better EE performance. However, since the energy consumption of the actual hardware and software is closely related to the specific implementation schemes and operation scenarios, there is a lack of precise specifications for EE across standardization organizations.