Nokia CEO claims 6G network will be here by 2030 — but you might not access it via your smartphone

Nokia CEO Pekka Lundmark claims 6G mobile networks to be in operation by the end of the decade but he doesn’t think the smartphone will be the most “common interface” by then.

Speaking on a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos Tuesday, Lundmark predicts 6G to hit the commercial market around 2030, which coincides roughly with when Huawei expects to see the technology on the market.

Headquartered in Finland, Nokia builds telecoms networks that enable phones and other internet-enabled devices to communicate with one another.

Asked when he thinks the world will move away from using smartphones to using smart glasses and other devices that are worn on the face, Lundmark said it will happen before 6G arrives.

“By then, definitely the smartphone as we know it today will not anymore be the most common interface,” he said. “Many of these things will be built directly into our bodies.”

He did not specify exactly what he was referring to but some companies, such as Elon Musk’s Neuralink, are working on producing electronic devices that can be implanted into the brain and used for communication with machines and other people. On a more basic level, chips can be implanted into people’s fingers and used to unlock things.

The exact definition of 6G is currently unclear and the world is only just getting to grips with 5G.