Radio Computing Power in the Next-Generation Networks—Challenges and Opportunities

The sixth generation of wireless communications technologies (6G) will be characterized by intelligence and conciseness. Intelligent techniques consume a huge amount of computing resources and require additional network elements in the network architecture. This will no doubt increase network complexity and propose challenges for ultra-low-latency applications. Enhancing network intelligence under complexity constraints will be the main problem. This article provides a comprehensive overview of 6G intellicise networks, specifically focusing on computing power. To address the above problem, this article proposes an intellicise network architecture with an intellicise plane that integrates intelligent algorithms. We assess the potential impact of computing power and then examine the advantages of radio computing power to network energy efficiency. Additionally, we underscore several research directions and discuss forthcoming challenges related to the realization of 6G intellicise networks.