Special Session 9: “Architecture Advancements towards 6G: Pre-Standardization, Key Technology Enablers, and Facing Challenges”
Date, hour and room to be defined
Session chairs:
- Xi Li (NEC Laboratories Europe, )
- Ömer Bulakci (Nokia, )
- Marco Gramaglia (Univ. Carlos III de Madrid, ES)
- Anastasius Gavras (Eurescom, )
Research and development activities for 6G networks are currently at full speed, aiming to develop, test, and validate novel technologies and architecture revolution that will bring the 6G to life by 2030. As standardization organizations such as 3GPP are progressing rapidly to define 6G roadmap and initiate their 6G-related activities, various industry as well as academic experts in Europe are innovating new technologies and solutions towards 6G that will deliver the promised performance enhancements at an overall reduced operational and environmental cost. In this context, the Smart Networks and Services Joint Undertaking (SNS JU) in Europe, under the Horizon Europe program for Research and Innovation, has started, to date, more than 60 project in Phases 1 and 2, and more new projects are underway, which focus on 5G-Advanced and 6G.
To address the architectural evolution towards 6G and to establish consolidated European view on the 6G architecture, the SNS-JU 6G Architecture Working Group (WG) has evolved from the 5G PPP 5G/B5G Architecture WG, which has successfully issued various white papers in the past on architecture design for 5G and 5G-Advanced system, with the latest open-access book introducing the technology vision towards 6G in European perspective (see https://www.nowpublishers.com/article/BookDetails/9781638282389). To foster a consolidated 6G architecture design shared by European 6G stakeholders, the WG released the first 6G Architecture white paper last year in EuCNC 2025 based on the initial research findings on 6G from the SNS JU Phase 1 and 2 projects (see https://smartnetworks.europa.eu/sns-publications). This white paper identifies key architectural innovations required for future 6G mobile telecommunications networks and revolves around key technology enablers and design recommendations encompassing areas, such as network infrastructure for extending 5G services, spectrum utilization, connectivity, sustainability, security, privacy, as well as AI and integrated communication and sensing, among others. These findings can be taken as valuable input and feedback to the main SDOs like 3GPP to drive their standardization directions for 6G. It also provides a foundation platform for SNS-JU projects working on long-term innovations and formulating research items under the 6G theme to share their visions, requirements, and architectural considerations for future mobile systems. Based on the first 6G Architecture white paper, the SNS-JU 6G Architecture WG continues promoting such discussions with all project members including newly onboard Phase 3 projects to consolidate new 6G Architecture innovations to explore the 6G path towards 2030.
The aim of this special session is to discuss the current development and trends in 6G architectural design, including the recent progress in standardization (3GPP, ETSI, IETF, etc.). By receiving opinions and impressions from experts in the academia and the telecommunications industry, the attendees will understand how the 6G architectural design will evolve in the near future, especially from a consolidated European perspective. The ongoing efforts in 6G standardization, the SNS JU projects, and the upcoming focus on 5G-Advanced and 6G research indicate the industry’s dedication to advancing mobile telecommunications systems. This special session aims to emphasize the importance of blending the architectural innovations spearheaded by the European research community into standardization work and the firmness of the evolution towards a fully-fledged 6G architecture, building on a collaborative platform such as the SNS JU to shape the future of mobile telecommunications systems.
The Workshops on 5G/6G Architecture organized by the proposers in the past:
• (11th) 5th 6GArch workshop, in conjunction with IEEE ICC, 24-28 May 2026, Glasgow, Scotland.
• (10th) 4th 6GArch workshop, in conjunction with IEEE Globecom, 8-12 December 2024, Cape Town, South Africa.
• (9th) 3rd 6GArch workshop, in conjunction with IEEE WCNC, 21-24 April 2024, Dubai, U.A.E.
• (8th) 2nd 6GArch workshop, in conjunction with IEEE Globecom, 4-8 December 2022, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
• (7th) 1st 6GArch workshop, in conjunction with IEEE 5G World Forum, 13-15 October 2021, Virtual Conference.
• 6th international workshop on 5G Architecture, in conjunction with EUCNC 2019, 18-21 June 2019, Valencia, Spain.
• Further 5 workshops on 5G Architecture since May 2015.
Programme
Part I: Deep dive presentations on selected topics of the 6G Architecture
Session Moderators: Dr. Ömer Bulakci (Chair of 6G Architecture WG, Nokia) and Dr. Xi Li (Vice-chair of 6G Architecture WG, NEC)
1. Architecture Migration from 5G and beyond towards 6G
• Presentation by SNS 6G-Arch WG (15 min)
• Presentation by XGMF (15 min)
This part is to present the perspective and approach of Europe and Japan on 5G to 6G Migration from both RAN and Core perspectives and standardization activities on this. The first presentation will be given by SNS 6G-Arch WG to present the view and migration options in Europe, while the XGMF is invited to give the second presentation to present the landscape and strategy in Japan (Asia).
2. Agentic AI Framework for 6G (15 min) – to be presented by Sebastian Robitzsch (Interdigital) and Jose M Alcaraz Calero (Agentic-6G) and Harilaos (NCSR)
This talk outlines the challenges and opportunities of AI Agents operating across one or more layers of the OSI stack towards a fully autonomous closed-loop system. Special focus will be given to architectural considerations across a range of computer networks to enable cognitive and/or goal-oriented AI Agents. Adhering to stringent requirements for safety, security, trust and privacy, the proposed Agentic AI Framework outlines approaches for trustworthy data access, federated intelligence and continuous assurance, while addressing foundational AI Agent challenges around AI Agent service discoverability and addressing AI Agents across the OSI stack. Furthermore, by embedding explainability, provenance tracking and runtime verification into the agent lifecycle, the proposed framework supports an AI native fabric where automation is both powerful and accountable.
3. Integration of Non-Terrestrial Networks in 6G: An Architecture Review (15min) – to be presented by Tomaso (DLR) and Harilaos (NCSR) (6G-NTN, 6G-SANDBOX, SUNRISE)
The native support of NTN in 6G from its conception (Day 1) is a challenging objective currently targeted at 3GPP level and in many research and industry initiatives by exploring the different aspects of such an integration exercise. In particular, achieving a one-fits-all architecture picture is quite hard because of the very different characteristics of terrestrial and non-terrestrial infrastructures and the related service demands from the supported verticals. As such, new and more flexible concepts are necessary to achieve this view. Starting from this picture, this talk will survey the main achievements at architecture definition from different SNS projects and will outline the main future R&D directions to consolidate the architecture towards an efficient system deployment.
4. Integrating Ambient-IoT Devices in 6G Networks (15 min) – to be presented by Jeroen Famaey (IMEC) (AMBIENT 6G)
The limited autonomy of battery-powered IoT devices increases maintenance costs, adds system complexity, and undermines long term reliability. The AMBIENT 6G project tackles this challenge by introducing a new class of energy neutral Ambient IoT (AIoT) devices that harvest ambient energy or use radio frequency wireless power transfer (RF WPT), enabling operation for decades without battery replacement. A central challenge is to maintain acceptable quality of service while operating on only a fraction of the energy budget of conventional IoT devices. Achieving this requires substantial adaptations to the 6G network architecture, as energy intensive operations, such as signalling, synchronization, and security, must be fundamentally rethought. In addition, AIoT devices demand architectural support for their core operations, including infrastructure for backscatter communication, wake up signalling, RF WPT, and federated learning operations (FLOps). In this talk, we will outline the specific requirements that AIoT devices impose on the 6G network architecture and highlight how the AMBIENT 6G project contributes to research and standardization efforts aimed at enabling seamless AIoT integration.
Part II: Open discussion with all presenters (15 min)
