6G news and analysis for the week ending Friday 12th September, 2025.
Nokia dominated proceedings this week with two significant announcements that together paint a picture of a company positioning itself at the centre of the 6G race. The official opening of its new 55,000-square-metre R&D and manufacturing campus in Oulu, Finland — attended by Finnish Prime Minister Alexander Stubb — gave CEO Justin Hotard a platform to articulate his vision for the company just five months into the job. The facility, described as “the home of radio,” brings together chip design, software development, product verification and manufacturing under one roof. More interesting than the ribbon-cutting, however, was Hotard’s candid framing of 6G as a geopolitical imperative: “Having this kind of technology… is much more significant” in today’s world, he said, linking the AI supercycle directly to the need for next-generation connectivity.
Separately, Nokia published a detailed sustainability-by-design (SbD) framework for 6G, first introduced at the 3GPP 6G Workshop in March 2025. The five principles — spanning energy efficiency, AI sustainability, hardware efficiency, climate resilience and value-oriented design — represent an attempt to embed environmental and social responsibility into the architecture of 6G from the outset, rather than retrofitting it later. With commercial 6G expected in the early 2030s and many ICT stakeholders committed to net zero by 2040, the timing of these design choices matters.
Rounding out this week’s coverage, SNS Insider published a market forecast projecting the global 6G market will reach $54.87 billion by 2032. While such forecasts should be treated with caution given that 6G standards are still years from completion, the underlying drivers cited — AI traffic growth, IoT proliferation and the need for capacity beyond what 5G-Advanced can deliver — align with what we are hearing from the 3GPP process. We also flag a republished ISAC story that largely repeats what we covered last week.
Key announcements this week
Nokia opens flagship 6G campus in Oulu
Nokia officially opened its new R&D and manufacturing campus in Oulu, Finland, in an event attended by Finnish Prime Minister Alexander Stubb. The 55,000-square-metre facility houses 3,000 employees and combines a manufacturing factory, R&D laboratories, product verification chambers and office space. CEO Justin Hotard, just five months into his role, used the opening to frame Nokia’s 6G ambitions within a broader geopolitical context. He said: “Geopolitically, having this kind of technology, this continued investment in technology, and the commitment we’re making in Nokia is much more significant.”
What’s new: Nokia revealed it is running proof-of-concept 6G testing in Oulu using frequencies close to 7 GHz across four test mobiles, assessing signal behaviour in urban environments. Mobile Networks president Tommi Uitto argued that even without a killer application, 6G is needed for capacity alone, stating that Bell Labs modelling shows “the uplink capacity of 5G and 5G-Advanced is not going to be enough.” The campus also hosts Nokia’s OuluZone field verification area, used in collaboration with NATO’s DIANA 6G project.
Why this matters: The Oulu campus represents Nokia’s largest single concentration of radio innovation capability, covering the entire lifecycle from System-on-Chip design through to standardisation work and base station hardware. Hotard’s emphasis on investing in “places that we think have geopolitical stability” — naming the US, Europe, India and Japan — signals a deliberate strategy to align R&D footprint with trusted supply chain corridors. The campus runs on 100 per cent renewable energy and features one of the world’s largest CO2-based district heating and cooling plants, with surplus energy heating 20,000 Oulu households. Uitto also flagged defence and private wireless for enterprise as two fast-growing segments that could offset a “flatish” operator market.
Implications for 6G standards: Nokia’s 7 GHz testing directly supports the upper mid-band spectrum range widely expected to be central to 6G specifications. Hotard’s call for 6G to provide “new sources of monetisation, other than the network itself” through open APIs echoes the programmable network and API-driven revenue themes that featured prominently in vendor submissions to the 3GPP 6G Workshop.
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Nokia proposes sustainability-by-design framework for 6G
Nokia published a detailed blog outlining its sustainability-by-design (SbD) framework for 6G, building on principles first presented at the 3GPP 6G Workshop in March 2025. The framework identifies five core principles: energy efficiency and GHG reduction, AI sustainability, hardware efficiency, resilience and climate change adaptation, and value-oriented design and operations. Nokia argues that 6G must be designed from the ground up with sustainability embedded, rather than relying on aftermarket add-ons.
What’s new: The framework explicitly addresses the environmental cost of AI integration in 6G, calling for the energy, resource and water usage of AI to be “responsibly balanced” against efficiency gains. Nokia also makes the case that 6G deployment in the 2030s will occur in a world potentially 2°C warmer, meaning network design cannot assume the same environmental conditions as previous generations. The company is leading the EU SUSTAIN-6G Lighthouse project with 25 partners to develop technical enablers for sustainable 6G networks.
Why this matters: Energy efficiency appears in nearly every 3GPP 6G Workshop submission, but Nokia’s framework goes further by addressing the full lifecycle — from chip design and manufacturing through to end-of-life. The observation that the radio access network accounts for roughly 80 per cent of network energy consumption during the use phase highlights where the biggest gains can be made. Nokia’s emphasis on avoiding “over-engineering networks solely for peak capacity and performance” represents a philosophical shift from previous generations, where peak throughput was the headline metric. The framework also introduces the concept of Key Value Indicators (KVIs) alongside traditional KPIs, encompassing societal, economic and environmental measures.
Implications for 6G standards: Nokia confirms it is promoting this SbD approach into ITU, ETSI, ISO, IETF and 3GPP standards. The 3GPP SA1 working group is already considering sustainability aspects when defining 6G use cases and service requirements. If adopted broadly, this could shape how 6G performance is measured and assessed — moving beyond speed and latency to include energy consumption, carbon footprint and social impact.
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6G market forecast reaches $54.87 billion
SNS Insider published a market report projecting the global 6G market will grow from $6.92 billion in 2024 to $54.87 billion by 2032, at a CAGR of 29.59 per cent. The US market alone is forecast to grow from $2.04 billion to $15.56 billion in the same period. The report segments the market by component, communication infrastructure, application and end-use industry, with hardware accounting for 51.4 per cent of 2024 revenue and software projected to be the fastest-growing segment.
What’s new: The report positions edge computing as the fastest-growing communication infrastructure segment through to 2032, driven by real-time data processing requirements for autonomous mobility, digital twins and XR applications. North America led the market in 2024 with a 37.4 per cent share, while Asia Pacific is projected to show the fastest growth. The report also notes that holographic communication is expected to be the fastest-growing application segment.
Why this matters: Market forecasts for a technology that has not yet been standardised should be treated with considerable caution. That said, the underlying assumptions — that AI-driven traffic growth will exceed 5G capacity, that edge computing will become essential, and that new spectrum and architectures are needed — are broadly consistent with the technical arguments being made within 3GPP. The emphasis on the hardware segment (terahertz transceivers, advanced antennas, RF modules) aligns with what Nokia, Ericsson and others are investing in now. The $50 billion-plus headline figure is best understood as indicative of market sentiment rather than a precise prediction.
Implications for 6G standards: The report’s emphasis on AI-native, self-optimising networks and edge computing aligns with the architectural direction emerging from 3GPP study items. However, forecasting specific market sizes before Release 21 specifications are finalised carries inherent uncertainty.