5G Networks Evolution for Extended Reality

5G standards evolve to support eXtended Reality (XR) services with device compute offloading to a remote server, for high quality rendering and heavy processing. This enables lightweight and long battery-life XR devices, but the services require low latency, high data rate, and high reliability. To cope with resulting challenges, 3GPP Release 18 standardized XR enhancements in three areas: XR awareness in the Radio Access Network, capacity, and user equipment energy saving. This article discusses the benefits and potential gains of these enhancements.