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The 6G network will be the next big step in mobile technology, expected to launch around 2030. Currently in the research phase, it promises to go far beyond 5G and 4G with faster speeds, lower latency, greater capacity, and better connectivity. Using THz frequencies for higher bandwidth, AI for smarter networks, and quantum communication for advanced security, 6G will power exciting applications like holographic communication, brain-machine interfaces, autonomous systems, and the Internet of Everything (IoE), paving the way for a highly connected and intelligent future.

The foundational advancement of 6G indicates significant performance enhancements over previous generations:

1. Spectrum Efficiency: With 5–10x improvement over 5G, 6G will maximise the spectrum use, enabling high-capacity transmissions for increasing network demands.
2. Peak Data Rates: Exceeding 1 Tb/s, 6G will support next-generation applications like holographic communications and high-resolution immersive experiences.
3. Latency: Reduced to 10–100 µs for over-the-air (OTA) transmissions, 6G enables ultra-reliable real-time applications such as brain-machine interfaces, autonomous systems, and tactile internet.
4. Mobility: With support for 1000 km/h speed, 6G supports high-speed transportation systems like hypersonic travel and advanced railway systems.
5. Connectivity Density: Connecting >10⁷ devices/km² will support dense IoT ecosystems, including smart cities, industrial automation, and ambient intelligence.
6. Energy Efficiency: Efficiency to be improved 100 times, emphasising sustainability and minimising the environmental impact of the growing digital ecosystem.
7. Traffic Capacity: With an area traffic capacity of up to 1 Gbps/m², 6G will provide consistent performance in densely populated urban centres and during high-traffic events.

6G technology is designed to address diverse and futuristic use cases, grouped into key verticals:

1. Enhanced eMBB (FeMBB)
   • Holographic Verticals: Real-time holographic telepresence for virtual meetings, education, and entertainment.
   • Full-Sensory Digital Sensing and Reality: Immersive experiences that incorporate multiple senses in digital interactions.
   • UHD/SHD/EHD Videos: Ultra-high-definition video streaming for cinematic-quality remote collaborations.
   • Tactile/Haptic Internet: Real-time transmission of touch and feedback for applications like telemedicine and virtual reality.
2. Enhanced Ultra-Reliable Low-Latency Communications (ERLLC)
   • Fully Automated Driving: Safe and reliable real-time communication for autonomous vehicles in urban and highway settings.
   • Industrial Internet: High-precision and responsive connectivity for smart factories, robotics, and industrial IoT systems.
3. Massive Machine-Type Communications (umMTC)
   • The Internet of Everything (IoE) will become a reality with comprehensive integration of devices, systems, and environments, driving smart cities and personalised services.
4. Enhanced Low Power Communications (ELPC)
   • Internet of Bio-Nano-Things: Advanced nanoscale connectivity for healthcare and biological systems.
5. Long-Distance High-Mobility Communications (LDHMC)
   • Space Travel: Reliable communication for interplanetary exploration and space tourism.
   • Deep-Sea Sightseeing: Advanced communication systems for underwater exploration and operations.
   • Hyperspeed Railways: Seamless connectivity for passengers traveling at speeds greater than 1000 km/h.
6. Energy Efficiency and Environmental Goals
   • Energy Harvesting: Devices will capture energy from ambient sources such as solar power or electromagnetic waves, reducing dependence on batteries.
   • Zero-Power Communications: Some devices will operate solely on harvested energy, making them ideal for IoT in remote or inaccessible locations.
   • AI-Driven Energy Management: Artificial intelligence will optimize resource allocation across the network, ensuring minimal power usage without compromising performance.

Exploring the ideas about adaptation and emergence as a part of ecosystem (i.e. complex adaptive system — CAS) development, I think it is more exciting when we see it through the combined lenses of CAS, Schumpeter, Kuhn, Foucault, and Lyotard. Each of these perspectives explores how change does not just happen bit by bit, but instead in bold (stolen from Telkom’s five bold moves program) and disruptive leaps, as transformations that completely alter the playing field, whether we’re talking about economies, sciences, societies, or even our basic understanding of the world.

CAS implies that change is a matter of adaptive cycles — cycles of growth, accumulation, collapse, and renewal. An ecosystem could grow, accumulates the resources until hitting a limit. Then its whole structure becomes unsustainable, collapses, and reboots in a new way — it reorganises itself with fresh relationships and opportunities. This cycle is anything but smooth; it’s like a forest fire clearing the way for new growth, and it’s essential for resilience and long-term adaptability. This model resonates closely with Schumpeter’s idea of creative destruction in economies. Schumpeter saw capitalism as a system where innovation doesn’t build up neatly on top of the old but bulldozes it — new technologies, businesses, and products disrupt markets, toppling established companies and paving the way for the next wave of growth. For Schumpeter, entrepreneurs drive this cycle, constantly reinventing the economy and shifting the landscape in unexpected ways.

Thomas Kuhn brought a similar idea into science with his concept of paradigm shifts. In Kuhn’s view, science isn’t a smooth, cumulative process of adding one discovery to the next. Instead, it moves forward in fits and starts. Scientists work within a “paradigm” — a shared framework for understanding the world — until enough anomalies build up that the whole system starts to feel shaky. At that point, someone comes along with a radically new idea that doesn’t just tweak the existing framework but replaces it. Kuhn’s paradigm shift is a profound reimagining of the rules, kind of like Schumpeter’s creative destruction but applied to the way we think and know. It’s as if science periodically wipes the slate clean and rebuilds itself from a fresh perspective.

As a Gen-X, I must also mention Michel Foucault. Foucault offered a more historical spin on these ideas with his concept of epistemes. Foucault believed that every era has its own underlying structure of knowledge, shaping how people perceive and think about the world. These epistemes don’t evolve smoothly; they’re punctuated by abrupt shifts where the entire basis of understanding changes. Just like in a Kuhnian paradigm shift, when a new episteme takes over, it fundamentally changes what questions are even worth asking, as well as who holds power in the discourse. In Foucault’s view, knowledge isn’t just a collection of facts piling up—it’s tied to shifts in power and perspective, with each era replacing the last in a way that’s not fully compatible with what came before.

Then there’s Jean-François Lyotard, who takes the idea a step further by challenging the very idea of cumulative “progress” altogether. As a postmodernist, Lyotard argued that the grand narratives that used to make sense of history, science, and knowledge are breaking down. Instead of one single, upward trajectory, we’re left with multiple, fragmented stories that don’t fit neatly together. Knowledge, for Lyotard, is no longer a matter of moving toward some ultimate truth but an evolving patchwork of perspectives. This rejection of a single narrative echoes Schumpeter’s and Kuhn’s visions of disruption and replacement over seamless continuity. Lyotard’s work suggests that, in knowledge and culture alike, stability is always provisional, subject to the next seismic shift in understanding.

So when we look at all these thinkers together, a fascinating picture emerges. In CAS, Schumpeter’s economics, Kuhn’s science, Foucault’s history, and Lyotard’s philosophy, progress is not about slowly stacking up ideas or wealth. Instead, it’s about cycles of buildup, breakdown, and renewal — each shift leaving behind remnants of the old and bringing forth something fundamentally new. This kind of progress isn’t just unpredictable; it’s fueled by disruption, tension, and revolution. These thinkers collectively remind us that the most transformative changes come from breaking with the past, not from adding to it. Progress, in this view, is a story of radical leaps, creative destruction, paradigm shifts, and fresh starts—where each new phase is a bold departure from what came before.