6G Foundry: Air-interface innovations for always‑on AI at scale

Qualcomm’s 6G Foundry project focuses on redesigning the air interface so mobile networks can handle much heavier data loads and support AI services running continuously. The work starts from familiar 5G tools like MIMO and full duplex. MIMO uses multiple antennas at both transmitter and receiver to increase capacity and reliability, and 5G’s massive MIMO extended this with large antenna arrays. For 6G, these techniques are being reworked to pull more usable capacity out of existing spectrum rather than relying only on new bands.

The aim is a radio layer that can serve many more devices at once, keep connections stable, and reduce delays so AI-driven applications can run in real time at scale. By rethinking how signals are sent and received over the air, Qualcomm and its partners want 6G networks to deliver higher throughput and more predictable performance, making “always-on AI” a practical baseline rather than a premium feature.