Why are there so many robots at a show that focuses on phones? This is the question I asked myself as I wandered the halls of Mobile World Congress last month, looking for the most exciting technology that will define the next few years.
The first and most obvious answer is that robots draw crowds. A dancing humanoid is an easy way to attract people to your booth. But to see robots at this year’s MWC as an advertising space would be to ignore the larger conversation happening around robots and communication.
Already in 2026, we’ve seen a giant leap forward in robotics, with companies including Boston Dynamics and phone maker Honor showing off humanoid robots designed for industry and domestic environments. But there’s still another level to unlock, and it relies on 6G — the next-generation network technology that will succeed 5G in 2030 and beyond.
On the surface, 6G and robotics may seem distinctly unrelated — beyond being the technology of the future we’re not yet living in. But in the future, 6G will open new doors for humanoid robots that will transform them from rigid, autonomous models into efficient vessels, where humans will become part of an omniscient, ever-learning ecosystem.
This will happen first in the industry, then in the hospitality and care areas, before reaching our homes. It’s an exciting prospect, but as the experts I spoke to at MWC last month warned, there will be huge technological leaps ahead of them, and we’re ready for that.
The power of 6G
To understand how 6G will open up new opportunities for robotics, let’s start with the special capabilities that network technology will have.
The first is that 6G will act as a sensor network, with sensors embedded in both robots and their environments, said Qualcomm’s vice president of Robotics Nakul Duggal.
This allows the 6G radio to act like a radar — constantly scanning and mapping the environment in real time for obstacles. Imagine a robot trying to navigate a crowded place: The 6G network should help quickly and cheaply create a kind of virtual map to do it safely.
Second, there is the sheer speed at which 6G will communicate large amounts of data. The 5G networks we currently use aren’t designed to handle AI applications, but 6G networks will, provide a consistent, low-latency, low-power way to process intelligence and deliver that intelligence to robots, according to Frank Long, associate director of intelligent services at deep technology research firm Cambridge Consultants.
Private 5G networks combined with edge AI (relying on computing devices, not just the cloud) can close the gap for now, but public networks, not so much. In contrast, Long said, “with 6G you can have that guarantee of quality of service.”
Cambridge Consultants brought a demo of an autonomous humanoid robot to MWC that can pick up and put down a box based on where it sees you pointing. Gesture recognition, and the ability to react in real time, while changing its grip to pick up something that might be at an angle, requires a large amount of computing power. (The demo is powered by a private 5G network.)
The robot was able to pick up this box and put it in the place I pointed to.
Whether the robots are connected to the cloud, or connected to each other on a peer-to-peer ship, the network will need to handle their intelligence demands at speed. For robots to keep talking to the infrastructure around them — and talk to each other — a strong, reliable link will be needed, explained Anshuman Saxena, general manager of robotics at chipmaker Qualcomm.
He gave an example of two robots working in a retail area where one removes cans of soda from a truck, the other adjusts the shelves. They will have to coordinate how to read the space around them to complete each task, including understanding how many cans will need to be placed, and when they will be ready.
“The only way is for this robot, while sitting on the shelf, to go to the back door of the unloading truck and see what’s there,” said Saxena. “Or the extraction robot transmits the big picture to all the robots, so that we have an idea of where things are placed, so they can plan.”
This is known as long-horizon planning, where the robot not only focuses on an immediate task but considers how that task fits into a wider context over a long period of time in a dynamic and unstructured environment. In other words, it does the kind of continuous mental work that people do every day, reacting quickly to what’s happening around us, while considering what’s next. In a Cambridge Consultant demo, the robot could think 16 steps ahead.
Meanwhile, lightning-fast 6G will help robots make split-second decisions, based on feedback not just from their sensor-laden bodies, but from other robots and technologies in the area. “The retail stores have cameras,” said Saxena. “It’s not a robot, but it can be a robot’s eyes.”
For robots, every day will be a school day
In your home, you may only have one humanoid robot. But that’s not as different from a retail situation as you might think.
That’s because most of the devices you own, including your phone and security cameras, can now communicate, and a robot will be just one more in the mix. Or maybe you’ll have one humanoid and a bunch of small robots designed for specific tasks.
“There’s a shipping component to the products we use,” Duggal said. “You don’t feel like it, but that’s how the product works.”
Remember that your phone is a physical object itself and all of its software and data is managed elsewhere. The phone also provides feedback to improve that software, as there will be robots equipped with 6G.
“So the robot is going to be doing some physical work, and while it may be doing it in your home, if it’s doing the same work in many other homes, there’s this element of learning and deployment,” Duggal said.
This continuous learning is perhaps one of the biggest challenges that 6G is expected to help solve in robotics. Robots and AI will require large amounts of real-world data that today’s networks cannot keep up with, even for routine tasks.
Example: picking up and serving a cup of coffee, which involves art and balance, with the added element of heat. The robot arm may not be sensitive to temperature. “But if it’s hot, how can we react?” Saxena said. “We will leave it quickly, which is a quick response time.”
The speed of 6G networks will be important. When a robot arrives in our homes, we will want to know that it should not give us a hot drink and how to protect itself from harm.
Much of this learning is likely to happen in hotels or restaurants, where at night, robots load and unload dishwashers and reset the kitchen. The robot will bring that training to your home, where it will still need to learn more about your unique structure and routine. This will likely be a time-consuming process.
Qualcomm works with several robotics companies, including Neura Robotics, which makes robots for industrial and home use.
“It’s going to be an incredible challenge,” Long said. “Put it this way, my immediate family members still struggle to open the baby gate on my stairs, even after intensive training. So, I think the robot may have a few years to open that baby gate.”
It’s learning 6G robots… and our homes
But 6G is not expected to become widespread until at least 2030. What robots are companies already building and deploying to do until then?
They are pushing the limits of what they can do with today’s networks. “So you’re not waiting for 6G,” Saxena said, “but when the connection comes, you’re talking about information that may be more than what robots can do. [today].”
While the convergence of robotics and 6G will open up next-level robotics that has yet to be seen, there is much that robots can learn right now — especially when it comes to improving intelligence — to improve them to take advantage of better communication. That’s especially true if we’re ever going to consider inviting humanoids into our homes, an idea that sounds, at least for now, like something that should be delayed until at least the 6G-enabled 2030s — if not later.
