With 6G Heating Up, Why Are Companies Still Crying "Pain"?

The patent paradox

China appears to be sprinting on paper. It has been reported that China accounts for 40.3% of global 6G patent applications, comfortably the world’s largest share. But patents are not products. At the 2026 Zhongguancun Forum parallel session on 6G, industry and government experts repeatedly returned to the same questions: when will 6G arrive, will devices cost more, and are China’s firms truly ready to commercialize it?

Supply‑chain shortfalls and geopolitics

The clearest bottleneck is hardware. It has been reported that Chinese developers still rely heavily on imported terahertz RF chips, high‑precision sensors and advanced front‑end modules; procurement cycles of three to six months and steep pricing, they say, have delayed prototype work by half a year or longer. Western export controls and broader semiconductor supply‑chain frictions are relevant context here, complicating efforts to localize critical components and to make the 6G stack “autonomous and controllable,” as analysts put it. China Information and Communication Technology Group (中国信息通信科技集团有限公司) deputy general manager and chief engineer Chen Shanzhi (陈山枝) warned that core device and baseband gaps remain a real constraint.

Empty air or real market?

The other big worry is ecosystem “hollowness.” Reportedly, despite large R&D stocks and strong policy signals — Beijing and Shanghai have both rolled out support packages, and the government has listed 6G as a priority industry — clear commercial scenarios remain sparse. Start‑ups and operators describe a classic chicken‑and‑egg trap: heavy network buildout needs demand, but users and verticals hesitate until costs and proven use cases emerge. China Mobile (中国移动) research head Huang Yuhong (黄宇红) says her group is trying to break that cycle with an open platform at the Zhongguancun Panlian Institute (中关村泛联院) to let device makers, AI labs and verticals test end‑to‑end prototypes — linking vivo terminals and Datang RF modules for live trials.

Timeline, promise and new business models

Standards watchers expect the first 6G specifications around 2029, with wider commercial rollout possible near 2030 — a timetable echoed by 3GPP and industry players such as Qualcomm. But experts stress 6G is not just faster mobile internet: it aims at star‑to‑ground convergence, sensing‑aware networks and tighter AI integration that could make robots, AR glasses, cars and even toys native network endpoints. Who will pay for that intelligence? Zhang Ping (张平), a State Council adviser and professor at Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, argues price will be relative — users may accept higher unit costs for entirely new services (robotic care, immersive AR) and new billing models (token or feature‑based pricing) could emerge as 4G–5G–6G coexist. So will 6G be inevitable — or merely expensive hype? The answer will depend less on patents and more on chips, partners and whether the early commercial loop can be closed.