Semantic Communications: A New Paradigm for Networked Intelligence

Wireless communications are envisioned to shift from “connected things” to “connected/networked intelligence”, which is featured by proliferating intelligent objects, intelligent interaction, and autonomous evolution. The resulting massive connections, stringent and variable requirements impose great challenges on 6G to constantly provide optimal service for networked intelligence (NI). We envision semantic communications as a promising roadmap to communications for NI. Specifically, orienting at the interaction intent, semantic communications develop compact representation frameworks, efficient transmission links, and concise network architecture for the networked information interaction and management, enhancing the efficiency, autonomy, intelligence, and scalability of communication systems. In this paper, the key functionalities of semantic-enabled NI and related works are overviewed. Some open issues are discussed at the end.