Ahead of MWC Barcelona, Nvidia bets AI-native platforms will carry telecom into 6G

UPDATED 02:00 EST / MARCH 01 2026 AI Ahead of MWC Barcelona, Nvidia bets AI-native platforms will carry telecom into 6G by Kyt Dotson SHARE Nvidia Corp. early Sunday announced ahead of the MWC Barcelona conference that its joining global telecom leaders in a commitment to build 6G on open and secure artificial intelligence-native platforms, bringing software-defined networking to the future of telecommunications. As it rolled out, 5G helped offer enough bandwith and opportunity to blaze a trail for the much-anticipated “metaverse,” but that hype has been quickly supplanted by another darling: artificial intelligence. The promise of AI — and thinking machines acting autonomously across networks — have greatly increased potential demands for switching and traffic. The current evolution, 5G Advanced, will turn early 5G deployments into something more capable and programmable and, frankly, more useful at scale. It represents a bridge that operators can tune using software-defined networking, allowing AI- and machine learning-assisted radio and operations to achieve better energy efficiency and improved coverage capacity, while supporting new devices. The expectation is that this will eventually grow into 6G, which is expected to launch commercially around 2030, with initial trials starting as early as 2028. Aside from transforming traditional connectivity, 6G wireless networks will accelerate advancements in physical AI, allowing millions of autonomous machines, sensors, vehic...