China Has Achieved 1 Terabyte Per Second 6G Wireless Communication Speeds With Vortex Millimeter Waves; New World Record
The South China Morning Post is reporting on China’s apparent breakthrough in 6G technology. Researchers in the Communist country have just sent 1 Terabyte (that’s TeraBYTE) of data over 3,300 feet (1 kilometer) in just 1 second. For comparison’s sake, we currently have hit 2 gigabits per second with Verizon’s 5G service and the max potential 5G speeds can theoretically reach 20 gigabits per second. This means China has hit speeds 400 times higher than those 5G theoretical speeds.
6G is still a developing technology, but many like China have been researching vortex millimeter waves to be the backbone of the next generation communications technology. Basically, existing wireless technologies use electromagnetic waves that spread like ripples in a pond. Think of a rock thrown into a pond and the ripples being the way electromagnetic waves move. Data is represented by the “up” and “down” of each ripple, or in this case wave. This is a very two-dimensional way of sending data, mathematically.
When dealing with vortex electromagnetic waves, there is more of a three-dimensional “tornado” look to the data stream. More information is able to be carried at a time in the whirling, or orbital angular momentum (OAM), of these waves. Speed isn’t the only benefit, as bandwidth for the number of devices increases.
A Chinese government researcher studying 6G technology in Shenzhen said the research and experiments in Beijing could be “the start of a revolution” in communications technology due to the new dimension, too.
“The most exciting thing is not just about the speed. It is about introducing a new physical dimension, which can lead to a whole new world with almost unlimited possibilities,” said the researcher, who asked to remain anonymous due to his involvement in confidential research projects and experiments with China’s largest telecommunications firms. Not to mention, it’s China…
China is saying that they will continue focusing on 5G for mass use until 2030, but that the military could adopt the tech much sooner because “they (the military) care more about performance than cost”, the researcher also said.
Even though it looks like China may be far ahead of the West in 6G technology, we may not be too far behind as researchers in Europe conducted communication experiments using vortex waves in the 1990s. Later in 2020, a team of researchers with the Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Company in Japan achieved a speed of 200 gigabits over 33 feet. In April of 2021, The United States and Japan made a deal worth $4.5 billion program as a joint effort to counter China’s expeditious progress in 6G as well as other technologies. That same year, Japan researchers reached 316 terabits per second speeds which is about 40 times slower than China’s speeds.
A little more bad news on the 6G front is that China owns 40% of all 6G patents. The US owns only 35% of the tech patents, but if we work with other countries like Japan that own 10% of the patents, that could help give us a leg up in the 6g race. Europe and South Korea own the rest of the patents for the technology.
Ultimately, we are in a new Cold War with China, but instead of this Cold War being over nuclear weapons or other typical arms, it’s now a war of technology supremacy that includes wireless communications and propulsion systems.
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