Artificial-Intelligence-Enabled Air Interface for 6G: Solutions, Challenges, and Standardization Impacts

As 3GPP has completed Release 16 specifications and worldwide 5G commercialization is speeding up, global interest in 6G is starting to grow. An interesting and important question is: will the rapid progress in artificial intelligence (AI) eventually alleviate the tremendous efforts required for future standardization of 6G and beyond? In this article, the potential impacts of AI on the air interface design and standardization are investigated. The AI-enabled network architecture is first discussed. The higher layer, physical layer, and cross- layer design empowered by AI capability are further presented. Based on these designs, the future 6G and beyond are expected to enter into an AI era. For potential new use cases and more challenging requirements, the network is capable of automatic updating the air interface protocols, which may substantially reduce the standardization efforts and costs of wireless communication networks.