Industry Leaders Call for Global Collaboration for 6G with India Taking a Leading Role During India Mobile Congress 2024

The 8th Edition of Indian Mobile Congress (IMC) 2024, the largest telecom, media and technology forum in Asia, jointly organized by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), showcased futuristic technologies, use cases, integration of AI in across sectors, display of sustainable tech solutions and Indias prowess in digital and telecommunication ecosystem with a range of emerging innovations.

International 6G Symposium

During the second day of IMC 2024, Shri Jyotiraditya M. Scindia, Hon’ble Minister of Communications and Development of Northeastern Region, interacted with prominent CEOs from leading global companies on the theme ‘Leading in the Moment: The Future is Now’. The second day also saw the inauguration of International 6G Symposium, Launch of Telecom Smart Cities Index by Opensignal and Workshop with Academicians of 5G Test Labs.

India Mobile Congress 2024

The third day of IMC 2024 witnessed a panel of industry trailblazers on Revolutionizing Content Creation in India: Leveraging AI and Digital Platforms to Reach the Next Billion Users, with Shri Jyotiraditya M. Scindia, Hon’ble Minister for Communications and Development of North Eastern Region, Government of India, Rajiv Makhni, Sahiba Bali, Naman Deshmukh and Mehak Kasbekar. The discussion saw a deep dive into the future of digital content and innovative strategies to engage a growing audience.

Further demonstrating this years theme of “The Future is Now”, the third day also saw the breakfast meeting of Dr. Chandra Sekhar Pemmasani, Minister of State for Communications and Rural Development, with prominent CTOs from leading global companies on the theme ‘Technologys next frontier: Leadership for a connected tomorrow’. The CTO Breakfast meeting witnessed thought provoking discussions addressing ways to develop new age technologies and foster last mile connectivity across India. The CTOs shared ideas and best practices from across the world that can redefine and refine the telecom landscape of India.

Quotes from key industry leaders during India Mobile Congress 2024:

Dr. Neeraj Mittal, Secretary, DoT said, “India is becoming a focal point for global innovation in technologies. The IMC and the ITU-WTSA is playing crucial roles in showcasing products, setting standards, and driving collaboration. As a leader in the 6G Alliance, India aims to collaborate with partners to advance research, standardization, and public-private partnerships. Joint research efforts, policy harmonization, and the development of skilled manpower are key priorities. Through these initiatives, India seeks to position itself as a global leader in 6G technology and drive innovation and development.”

Shri D Sridhar Babu, IT Minister, Telangana said, “Telangana stands as a beacon of innovation, boasting impressive statistics that highlight our states technological and academic prowess. We have 1.5 lakh engineers, 1 lakh STEM graduates, and a total of 2.5 lakh graduates fuelling our dynamic workforce. Telangana is uniquely positioned to harness this growth. Our approach to becoming an AI powerhouse is not only visionary but meticulously executed. We are developing an AI-ready ecosystem characterized by state-of-the-art compute capacity, unified AI services, and substantial funding for AI startups. At the core of this vision is the Telangana AI Mission, built upon seven foundational pillars designed to drive our AI strategy forward. These pillars include the Young India Skill Development University, AI Capacity, Trust in AI, AI City, CoEs for key industries, AI for Grassroots, and AI in Governance.“

Lt. Gen. Dr. S.P. Kochhar, DG, COAI said, “As technology advances at an unprecedented pace, policies and regulations must adapt rapidly to keep up. The growing complexity of network boundaries, data sovereignty, and the integration of man-machine interfaces in 5G and beyond call for a seamless blend of public-private partnerships. By leveraging the private sectors expertise and integrating cutting-edge technologies like AI and blockchain, we can build policies that are dynamic, interactive, and future-ready. Technologies like quantum computing and blockchain will play a key role in enforcing these policies, but they also bring challenges such as data sovereignty and Global Personal Taxation Regimes (GPTR), which are not inherently supported by technology. These concepts are alien to the digital infrastructure, yet legislation continues to enforce policies that don’t align with the technical capabilities of the systems in place.”

Lt. Gen. AK Bhatt (Retd.), DG, ISpA said, “We must address the fact that 40% of Indias population, which remains offline, is nearly twice the population of the United States. The digital divide is most pronounced in our rural areas, where traditional infrastructure faces significant challenges. Fiber optic cables and mobile towers, the backbone of our current internet infrastructure, are costly and often impractical to implement in remote and rugged terrains. Communication will continue to be the largest revenue source, with new constellations expanding the reach of satellite communications, particularly for mobility in remote areas, and reducing traditional demands for a much larger number of satellites. Several constellations, including Eutelsat OneWeb, SpaceX, and Amazons Kuiper, are already in place, and more are expected to emerge soon. This market will accelerate with the availability of broadband connectivity. The satellite market in India is poised for explosive growth, with the number of satellite internet users expected to increase six-fold by 2025, reaching about two million.”

Tarun Chhabra, Sr. Vice President & Country Head, Nokia India said, “There is a huge change occurring in the device ecosystem, especially in the smartphone vertical. India has made commendable progress in 5G and going ahead, we need to create future-ready networks which can support even more advanced devices and new age technologies like AI. We are also working on boosting the sensing capacity of networks, which can facilitate enhanced and autonomous use cases. The future will be driven by robust collaboration between the customer and partner ecosystem, opening up of networks for innovation and interoperability. The next techade will witness the fusion of digital and physical worlds, augmenting human capabilities with AI-enhanced networks that sense, think and act being vital for this evolution.”

Anku Jain, Managing Director, MediaTek India said, “India has a content generation economy and 5G FWA is allowing 5G connectivity in remote areas. Further, AI chipsets are optimising bandwidth, increasing reliability and advancing the edge computing, speeding up response times, enabling providers to offer efficient, real-time data services and monitoring solutions. MediaTek is extensively focusing on Edge AI to locally facilitate the large computations required by Large Language Model (LLM), thereby enhancing efficiency and user privacy.”

Concurrent to IMC 2024, India is also hosting the prestigious international conferences – World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly New Delhi 2024 (WTSA 2024) and Global Standards Symposium (GSS 2024) from 14-24 October 2024 at Pragati Maidan itself.

India Mobile Congress, Asia’s largest digital technology forum, has become a well-known platform across the globe for showcasing innovative solutions, services and state-of-the-art use cases for industry, government, academics, startups and other key stakeholders in the technology and telecom ecosystem. The India Mobile Congress 2024 is hosting over 400 exhibitors, about 900 startups and participation from over 120 countries. The event is also showcasing more than 900 technology use case scenarios, hosting more than 100 sessions with over 600 global and Indian speakers.