Qualcomm says commercial 6G AI devices could ship in 2029

Qualcomm said at MWC Shanghai 2026 that pre-commercial 6G devices could be available in 2028 and that commercial shipments could start in 2029. The forecast came from Qualcomm senior vice president John Smee, who said the company sees 6G as the wireless technology for the AI era.

John Smee said Qualcomm expects 6G to support context-aware artificial intelligence across devices and networks. He said AI would become a user interface beyond app-based interactions, with access through voice, glasses, and watches, and described a shift toward persistent, context-aware agents from 2030 onward.

Qualcomm tied its timeline to work at 3GPP, the standards body that develops mobile network specifications. The company said its confidence in 6G commercialization before the end of the decade depends on 3GPP Release 21, whose initial approval is scheduled for March 2027. Qualcomm president and CEO Cristiano Amon made similar comments at Computex in Taiwan, where he described 6G as a key part of future AI architecture and of the first generation of mobile devices designed to run that technology natively.