Abstract

Research on 6th Generation (6G) has been going on for several years. A major milestone after concurrent and focused research efforts was the establishment of the first pan-European 6G Flagship EU-funded collaborative research project Hexa-X [1], which started in January 2021 and collected industry and academia together to create momentum and direction for 6G. The next phase of such a broad initiative started in January 2023, when the second pan-European 6G Flagship project Hexa-X-II started, and is planned to last until June 2025 [2]. Simultaneously with Hexa-X-II, many other European Union (EU)-funded projects within the Smart Networks and Services Joint Undertaking (SNS JU) program [3] kicked off in January 2023, addressing several aspects of the forthcoming 6G system. It is expected that at the end of Hexa-X-II, the momentum on 6G actions will shift gradually from research to pre-productization and the creation of technical specifications in standardization bodies.