Nam Hyun-woo has worked as a staff writer at The Korea Times since 2013, mostly covering business and politics. He currently belongs to the Business Desk where he covers topics such as emerging tech, AI, ICT and Korea's chaebol community. Prior to joining the team, he was the paper's correspondent for the presidential office of Korea during the Yoon Suk Yeol and Moon Jae-in administrations.
KT rolls out road map for 6G network at MWC 2026
Lee Jong-sik, head of KT's Future Network Lab, speaks during a press conference at Mobile World Congress 2026 in Barcelona, Spain, Monday (local time). Courtesy of KT
By Nam Hyun-woo
Korean mobile carrier KT unveiled its 6G network road map, positioning the next-generation network as a social infrastructure for stable and reliable operation of artificial intelligence (AI), not an extension of past competitions over network speed.
During a press conference on the sidelines of Mobile World Congress 2026 in Barcelona, Spain, Monday (local time), head of KT’s Future Network Lab Lee Jong-sik said that the company aims to build an intelligent infrastructure integrating networks and AI.
“While 5G was driven by a race to achieve the world’s first commercialization, our 6G network will focus on delivering tangible improvements in customer experience, restructuring costs to ensure sustainable growth as a carrier, and creating new market opportunities,” he said.
According to the company, its 6G vision centers on using AI to enable intelligent network operations while ensuring the network delivers the ultralow latency and ultrahigh reliability that AI services demand.
The importance of ultralow latency is growing amid the expansion of AI services, as AI systems often need to process and exchange data in real time. Even the slightest network delay can compromise performance across a range of applications, including robotics and autonomous vehicles.
To achieve ultralow latency, KT said it plans to design its entire network architecture, from devices and wireless networks to the backbone connecting AI data centers, for minimal delay. The company said it will combine network slicing with photonic networking to build an end-to-end ultralow latency infrastructure ranging from devices to data centers.
Network slicing is a technology that divides a single physical network infrastructure into multiple independent virtual networks, each tailored to meet different service requirements. Photonic networking transmits and exchanges data using light.
To improve accessibility, KT also plans to set up three-dimensional coverage spanning land, sea and air, with the goal of enhancing service quality in urban and indoor environments while maintaining uninterrupted connectivity during emergency situations.
To do this, KT will integrate nonterrestrial networks with terrestrial mobile networks, while deploying super cell technology to enable rapid temporary network deployment and communication services in disaster situations.
For AI-based network operations, KT said, it will design its 6G network as an “AI-native network” that integrates networks for telecommunications and AI workload infrastructure, so that it can secure flexibility in infrastructure investment while improving service quality and bringing AI services closer to end users.
Network operations will be automated through a combination of a foundation model based on a network-specialized large language model, digital twin and AI agent technologies, covering the entire designing, establishing and monitoring process.
Along with the network side, the company also proposed a semantic communication that focuses on transmitting the meaning and context of data rather than entire data sets. The company said the approach is designed to optimize connectivity for low-latency, high-efficiency services such as AI of Things, autonomous driving and remote robot control.
“We believe the race for a 6G network will be a competition for a comprehensive architecture that brings all technologies into a single unified structure,” a KT official said. “KT will build 6G capabilities by integrating AI, satellite, optical, security and operational technologies, and will continue to showcase key developments at global exhibitions and other events.”