Active Computing & AI Engineering

Synergy: Taking Openness to the Next Level in 6G Networks (Telecommunications research focused application to joint UKRI-DST call)

Funder UKRI
Recipient organisation University of Edinburgh Source-published name: University of Edinburgh
Funding £1.1M
Period Feb 2025 — Feb 2029

In plain English

AI plain-English summary

Mobile network operators are tearing down the proprietary, single-vendor systems that have dominated for decades and replacing them with open, modular architectures—and this project aims to push that transformation far beyond the radio access network. As 5G evolves toward 6G, the current push for openness has largely focused on the radio equipment (Open RAN), leaving the core network and operator ecosystems still locked into closed, inflexible designs. This project tackles that gap by designing a fully open, data-driven mobile network architecture that uses artificial intelligence to control both the radio and core layers, and extends openness to private networks run by factories, hospitals, or campuses. The UK-India team will prototype their systems on a live, campus-scale private 5G testbed at the University of Edinburgh. If successful, the work could unlock major efficiency gains, reduce operator costs, and make next-generation networks more energy-efficient—benefits that flow to anyone who relies on mobile connectivity, which is nearly everyone. The research is applied and experimental, not fundamental science; its direct goal is to shape how 6G gets built.

View original technical description
The architecture and deployment of mobile networks has undergone remarkable transformation in recent years through disaggregation in various forms, that in turn led to a growing diversity in the vendor ecosystem as evident with Open RAN. As we head towards 6G, we envision that this path to openness in mobile networks should continue to become holistic to focus on data-driven RAN control leveraging AI as well as with an expanded scope to bring in its fold openness to the mobile core architecture as well as in the operator ecosystem leveraging private networks. Doing so will unlock unprecedented efficiency gains, enable greater automation, result in significant cost savings and make nextG network infrastructure environmentally sustainable. In this project, we set out to address the whole host of technical challenges to enable this bold vision. The project team with partners in the UK (University of Edinburgh) and across India (IIT Hyderabad and IIT Dharwad) reflects a synergistic union of expertise spanning mobile networking system designs, AI for mobile networks and testbed driven experimental research. Systems and methods developed in this project will be prototyped and evaluated at scale through a campus-scale O-RAN compatible experimental private 5G network in Edinburgh.

View the original record at the funder ↗

Researchers

Mahesh Marina (Principal Investigator)

Related Research

Grants with similar aims, by meaning.

UKRI-India Future Networks Initiative
6G Sub-Terahertz Software Defined Radio Testbed
Building Links with India: Cognitive Wireless Systems for Universal Access
India-UK Advanced Technology Centre (IU-ATC) of Excellence in Next Generation Networks Systems and Services
A Unified Multiple Access Framework for Next Generation Mobile Networks By Removing Orthogonality (MANGO)

Original classification

Research and Innovation

Plain English summaries and category classifications on this site are generated by AI and may not perfectly reflect the original research.