China Moves into Phase Two of National 6G Testing

China’s 6G programme appears to be entering a more practical stage. Having spent several years evaluating individual candidate technologies, the country is now moving towards integrated technical solutions, prototype systems and trials in more realistic environments.

In July 2026, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, commonly known as MIIT, confirmed that it was accelerating the second phase of the country’s 6G technology trials. This follows the completion of the first phase, the approval of experimental spectrum in the 6 GHz range and the launch of national and provincial initiatives intended to connect research, testing, equipment development and potential applications.

The significance is not that China has built a commercial 6G network. There is no final 6G standard or commercially deployable 6G equipment yet. Instead, China is beginning to test whether individual research results can be combined into credible end-to-end systems.

China has divided its national 6G testing programme into three phases. The first phase focused on key technologies and identifying the main technical directions for 6G. MIIT said in November 2025 that this phase had been completed after four years of testing, producing more than 300 key technology reserves or research results.

The second phase focuses on technical solutions. It will evaluate candidate technologies against representative 6G scenarios and performance requirements while supporting the development of prototype equipment. The third phase is expected to move towards system-level networking, pre-commercial equipment and testing of important 6G products.

This transition is important. A technology may perform well in an isolated laboratory demonstration but behave very differently when it has to coexist with other radio, network, computing and device functions. Phase Two should therefore provide a better indication of which candidate technologies could form part of a practical 6G system.

It should also help Chinese organisations prepare technical contributions for international standardisation. The technologies being tested are not automatically part of the future 6G standard, but successful trials can provide data, implementation experience and evidence to support standards proposals.

An important step came in May 2026, when MIIT granted the IMT-2030 (6G) Promotion Group permission to use experimental spectrum in the 6 GHz range in selected areas.

The authorisation supports testing against the representative usage scenarios and performance capabilities identified by the International Telecommunication Union for IMT-2030. China’s official announcement linked the spectrum approval to technology research, standards development and future industrialisation.

This is an experimental spectrum licence. It should not be interpreted as a nationwide commercial allocation of the 6 GHz band for 6G.

Nevertheless, access to licensed spectrum gives researchers a more controlled environment for outdoor and system-level testing. It allows prototype base stations and terminals to be evaluated beyond simulations, cable-connected laboratories and small indoor testbeds.

The use of spectrum around 6 GHz is also noteworthy. Much 6G research publicity has concentrated on millimetre-wave, sub-terahertz and terahertz frequencies. These higher bands may provide extremely wide channels, but their propagation characteristics create significant coverage and mobility challenges.

Spectrum around 6 GHz offers a more practical balance between available bandwidth, antenna size and propagation. It could therefore be useful for early wide-area 6G systems, although the eventual 6G spectrum framework will almost certainly include a mixture of existing mobile bands, new upper-mid-band spectrum and selected higher-frequency bands.

China is also trying to bring regional governments and industrial clusters into its national 6G programme.

On 4 June 2026, MIIT launched a ministry–province collaborative 6G pilot initiative. Participating provinces and municipalities were invited to select between one and three development areas based on their research capabilities, industrial base and potential application environments.

The programme aims to produce indigenous technical solutions, emerging applications and new terminal products by 2029. Its technical priorities include the integration of communications with artificial intelligence, satellite internet and wireless sensing. Potential application areas include immersive communications, industrial manufacturing, the low-altitude economy, embodied intelligence and smart maritime services.

The initiative suggests that China does not intend to concentrate all 6G experimentation within a single national laboratory. Different regions can specialise according to their existing strengths, while MIIT and the IMT-2030 Promotion Group coordinate testing methods, environments and results.

Recent developments in Jiangsu and Hubei illustrate how this model may work.

Nanjing has emerged as one of China’s most visible 6G test locations, supported by Purple Mountain Laboratories, Southeast University, local companies and the city government.

In April 2026, Purple Mountain Laboratories formally placed what it describes as China’s first Pre-6G outdoor trial network into operation. The platform incorporates experimental 6G technologies into an environment that remains connected to existing 5G infrastructure.

The network is intended to support system-level validation rather than isolated component testing. Reported capabilities include high bandwidth, long-distance coverage, deterministic low latency, integrated sensing and AI functions built into the network. Trials have covered low-altitude inspection, industrial manufacturing, embodied intelligence and holographic communications.

By June, Nanjing reported that 64 Pre-6G nodes had been deployed across locations including Purple Mountain Science and Technology City, the Jiangsu television tower, Jiangxinzhou and the Shangqinhuai area. The network provides coordinated air and ground coverage and supports ten representative application scenarios.

These include low-altitude inspection, industrial wireless control, connected embodied-intelligence systems, bridge inspection and energy pipeline monitoring.

One of the more interesting aspects of the platform is the attempt to integrate communications, sensing, computing and AI within or close to the base station.

For an embodied-intelligence application, the network can help a robot or another autonomous machine observe its environment, access nearby computing resources, make a decision and perform an action. Instead of treating the mobile network as a pipe carrying data to a distant cloud, the network becomes part of the machine’s perception and control system.

This is closer to the meaning of an AI-native network than simply using AI to optimise radio parameters.

However, the term Pre-6G needs to be treated carefully. The Nanjing platform is not a standards-compliant 6G network. It is an experimental environment that combines advanced 5G capabilities with candidate 6G technologies. Its purpose is to test ideas, collect data and identify technical and commercial problems before 6G specifications are completed.

Hubei announced its own 6G industrial action plan in July 2026, positioning the province as a future centre for 6G technology, testing and manufacturing.

The province plans to deploy 30 experimental 6G base stations by 2027 and create 30 representative applications. Areas under consideration include industrial internet, embodied intelligence, connected vehicles, low-altitude aviation, Yangtze River shipping, healthcare, tourism, urban governance and emergency communications.

Hubei’s strengths differ slightly from those of Jiangsu. Wuhan already has a substantial communications and optoelectronics ecosystem, including China Information and Communication Technologies Group, CICT Mobile, universities, laboratories and companies working on optical networking, radio systems and satellite equipment.

The provincial plan identifies integrated communications, sensing, computing and intelligence, space-based optical communications and satellite–terrestrial integration as important technical challenges. It also calls for the development of products such as 6G baseband chips, new base stations, satellite payloads and optical modules.

Hubei is therefore not presenting itself only as a location for application demonstrations. It is attempting to connect 6G research with equipment production, satellite infrastructure, components and future supply chains.

A planned 6G open laboratory in the Optics Valley Future City area will support technology validation and testing of products such as reconfigurable intelligent surfaces. Smaller demonstration environments are also expected to be established within industrial facilities.

Satellite–terrestrial integration is another major part of China’s current 6G activity.

China Telecom recently reported a trial involving coordination between a terrestrial network, a geostationary satellite and a medium-Earth-orbit satellite. According to the company, the time required for a transition between network components was reduced from more than 300 milliseconds to around 26 milliseconds.

The result does not mean that China already has a complete 6G satellite–terrestrial network. It demonstrates one part of a much larger challenge.

Future integrated networks will need to coordinate multiple satellite orbits, terrestrial cells, airborne platforms, devices and spectrum resources. They will also need common approaches to mobility, authentication, service continuity, routing and network management.

The objective is to move beyond using a satellite merely as backhaul for a separate terrestrial network. Satellite and terrestrial access would instead become components of a coordinated system, selecting and combining resources according to coverage, capacity, latency and service requirements.

Integrated sensing and communications, commonly abbreviated as ISAC, is another recurring theme in the Chinese trials.

A conventional cellular base station transmits and receives communications signals. An ISAC-capable system could also analyse reflections from those signals to detect, locate or track objects.

Potential applications include detecting drones, monitoring traffic, supporting robots, inspecting infrastructure and creating dynamic models of physical environments. A single radio infrastructure could therefore provide both connectivity and environmental awareness.

Purple Mountain Laboratories has demonstrated wide-area sensing and communications capabilities for low-altitude applications. Its wider research programme combines communications, sensing, computing, intelligence and control, rather than treating sensing as an independent feature added to a conventional network.

Many technical questions remain. Communications and sensing may require different waveforms, antenna patterns, scheduling strategies and performance metrics. Networks will also need to manage interference, processing demands, privacy and the ownership of sensing data.

Phase Two testing should help determine how these functions can coexist within realistic systems.

The phrase AI-native is now widely used in discussions about 6G, but it can describe several different ideas.

At the simplest level, AI can help operate the network by predicting traffic, optimising radio resources, detecting faults and reducing energy consumption.

A deeper form of AI integration places machine-learning functions within the design of the radio interface, network architecture and protocols. AI is not merely an external management tool but part of how the system communicates, adapts and makes decisions.

A third model treats the network as infrastructure for distributed AI. Devices, base stations, edge computing platforms and central clouds can jointly provide connectivity, computing and intelligence to robots, vehicles and other autonomous systems.

The Nanjing demonstrations appear particularly focused on this third model. AI, computing and sensing capabilities are placed closer to the radio edge so that machines can react to changing physical conditions without sending every decision to a distant cloud.

This could become one of the most important differences between 5G and 6G. The network would no longer connect only people and devices. It would also connect, support and coordinate large numbers of intelligent agents.

China’s Phase Two programme represents a meaningful transition from component-level research towards prototype systems and real-world testing.

Licensed 6 GHz trials provide a practical radio environment. The national ministry–province initiative connects central planning with regional research and industry. Nanjing is testing communications, sensing, computing and intelligence through a relatively large Pre-6G platform, while Hubei is combining trial networks with optoelectronics, satellite systems and equipment manufacturing.

At the same time, claims around Pre6G and 6G trials require caution.

There is not yet a final international 6G standard. The current testbeds contain candidate technologies, proprietary implementations and evolved 5G components. Performance achieved in a controlled demonstration may not be reproduced across a nationwide, multi-vendor commercial network.

The most important outcome of Phase Two may therefore not be an eye-catching speed record. It will be evidence showing which technologies can work together, which applications genuinely need them and which system designs are mature enough to influence international standards.

China is not deploying commercial 6G yet. It is building the laboratories, spectrum environments, prototype networks, industrial clusters and application ecosystems that it hopes will shape what 6G eventually becomes.

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