Signals Flash! 6G with a Side of Guac
Signals Flash! 6G with a Side of Guac
Some Takeaways and Perspectives from the Qualcomm 6G Leadership Day
09/02/2026 | 15 pages
Last week Signals Research Group (SRG) attended the Qualcomm 6G Leadership event held in balmy San Diego. Qualcomm sponsored our trip but we were under no obligation to publish a report while Qualcomm is reading this Signals Flash for the first time, along with all other readers. Any errors, omissions, or misleading interpretations of what we heard and saw during the day are the fault of SRG.
No visit to Qualcomm would be complete without getting stuffed full of 5G, 5G Advanced, and now 6G technology discussions. Likewise, no trip to San Diego would be complete without a few orders of guacamole. In that regard, we got more than our money’s worth. Fortunately, avocados contain the “good” kind of fat, or so we are told.
Key Highlights and Observations
The Vision. 5G = Speed. 6G = Intelligence that is AI-centric, AI-driven and for AI-based traffic, including support for context aware communications and collaborative communications.
The Technologies. Giga-MIMO tops our list along with more Tx/Rx antennas in the smartphone, even up to 4 UL-MIMO layers and 8 DL-MIMO layers. ISAC (monostatic and bistatic), SBFD, and BWP are acronyms worth adding to your dictionary.
The Challenges. The chicken and the egg scenario is alive and well. A G technology is most successful when its success doesn’t hinge on the participation of others outside of the wireless ecosystem. It will take a village for 6G to achieve success.