The China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) used state media this week to assert that China leads in 6G development.
Announcing the findings on World Intellectual Property Day (April 26), CNIPA shared an analysis of roughly 38,000 6G-related patents. According to the report, about 35 percent—13,449 patents—originated in China.
The United States ranked second, holding roughly 18 percent of those patents.
CNIPA’s report recommends China leverage its 5G technological strengths to maintain a lead as global 6G efforts progress.
Meanwhile, governments and research initiatives in the US and EU have launched 6G projects aimed at ensuring no single country dominates the next-generation mobile standard.
Where CNIPA identifies China trailing international peers, the report suggests cooperation with major Japanese and Korean companies—such as NEC, Samsung, and Mitsubishi—to reduce dependence on technologies from the United States and Europe.
Although Chinese entities collectively hold the largest share of 6G-related patents, only one Chinese company appears among the global top ten patent holders. The top three companies named are NEC, Daewoo Communications, and Mitsubishi.
China leads in patents related to terahertz networking, accounting for about 40 percent of the global total. Of the top ten patent holders in this field, six are Chinese universities or research institutes; the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China and the China Jiliang University (China Metrology University) occupy the top two positions.
6G aims to integrate terrestrial, satellite, and underwater networks to enable connectivity from the deep sea to space. China reportedly holds roughly 31 percent of patents in this domain, but the top three companies are non-Chinese—NEC, Daewoo Communications, and Mitsubishi—with only one Chinese company among the top ten.
Low-latency deterministic networking is another key 6G technology, and here China accounts for approximately 23 percent of patent applications while the United States holds about 55 percent. U.S. firms Cisco and General Electric are identified as leading patent holders in this area.
Artificial intelligence is expected to play a much more central role in 6G networks. CNIPA’s analysis shows that about 75 percent of current patent applications related to AI-enabled 6G technologies come from China, with the top three applicants being Southeast University, the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, and Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications. CNIPA’s findings underscore a need for increased international research to balance this concentration.
A formal 6G standard is not expected until late in the decade, but projections foresee terabit-class peak speeds, up to 100 times the capacity of 5G, and three-dimensional coverage spanning underwater environments to space. These advances would enable next-generation services such as immersive extended reality (XR) and high-fidelity mobile holograms.
(Photo by Li Yang on Unsplash)