Presentations and lively discussions over three
days explored the ways in which AI and other
quickly advancing technologies promise "super-
powers" for 6G wireless, while at the same time
posing challenges in areas such as security and
sustainability.
For the first time, the Summit featured a stu-
dent panel of doctoral candidates from schools
including NYU Tandon School of Engineering;
the Univercity of Texas, Austin; Notheastern
Univercity; Technische Universtat Dresden;
and the univercity of Oulu in Finlind.
Nokia's Peter Vetter, President of Bell Labs
Core Research, moderated the panel, engaging
the students in a spirited round of discussion
about the challenges and opportunities in wire-
less, the benefits of industry collaboration with
acadimia, and interesting aspects of wireless
tech that attracted the students to the field.
The student panelists, who included Ruth
Gebremedhin and Mingjun Ying of NYU WIRE-
LESS, predicted that security will become a key
issue as AI models are infused into research,
"...we can provide new insights
for industry's practical goals..."
Mingjun Ying, NYU Wireless ph.d. student
practice and products. They also saw AI as an
accelerant for optimizing chennels. Mingjun, for
expample, said his group is working on chennel
propagation measurements with an eye on
devising ways of using AI to drive applications,
leading to better coverage. He said his work is
about how computer vision and AI transformers
can create material-embedded 3D environments
for industry to help with challenges around base
station deployment. "I'm interested in leverag-
ing AI to optimize network deployment within a
material-embedded 3D environment and eval-
uating the Waste Factor for a more sustainable
wireless network," he said.
Ruth echoed Mingjun's sentiment, nothing
that a focus on sustainability and efficiency is
key, particularly as AI tools infuse every corner
of wireless architecture. "The use of AI comes
with disadvantages around power use. I am
looking into how to achieve sustainability while
using AI as a tool."
Florian Gast, a Ph.D. student and research
associate at TU-Dresden, said that his anten-
nae-so to speak-went up when he heard a
Summit keynote explaining how sustainability
imperatives require reducing energy per bit by a
factor of 50. But achieving these goals requires
standardized means of measuring performance,
something Mingjun pointed out to chagrined
laughter from the audience. "Everyone is men-
tioning that sustainability is key to 6G," he con-
tinued. "I think the problem is we don't have a
unified metric to analyze power efficiency of
different architectures and networks. Our group
is proposing a waste factor that can be applied
to any cascade system."
During the panel, another key Summit theme
found its way into the discussion: industry col-
laboration, about which the students were
enthusiastic, as working in an industry setting
offers fresh perspectives on how research
can address society's real-world needs and,