At FutureNet Asia 2025 in Singapore, Takehiro Nakamura, Chief Standardisation Officer at NTT Docomo, delivered the closing keynote on day two of the summit. His session focused on how AI has become central to Docomo’s 5G strategy and how those developments are shaping the operator’s path towards 6G. It was a forward looking talk that connected practical achievements with the longer term vision for future networks.
Nakamura-san explained that while 5G and 6G fall within the familiar ten year generational cycle, there is also a broader twenty year technological rhythm that influences how mobile systems evolve. After voice in the first wave and mobile multimedia in the second, the third wave is centred on unlocking new business value. In Docomo’s view, the success of 5G is essential for the success of 6G, especially in enterprise services where operators hope to build new revenue streams.
AI now sits at the heart of Docomo’s capability. The operator has built its data analytics on a very large foundation, spanning data from around one hundred million customers and hundreds of thousands of base stations. By combining this scale with a wide range of AI techniques, Docomo has created applications for enhanced customer service, network optimisation, personalised services and digital transformation across both internal and external domains.
Nakamura-san described a broad AI technology stack that includes natural language processing, customer behaviour modelling, location analysis, advanced analytics and video recognition. These core capabilities feed into applications across marketing, CX, healthcare, finance, network operations and local government. One of the examples he highlighted was Docomo’s LLM value added platform, designed to address security, reliability and safety concerns while offering a user friendly interface for internal teams and partners.
Another focus area is customer understanding through a platform known as Docomo Sense. By analysing subscriber information alongside online and offline behavioural data, the operator can segment customers with much higher precision. This supports personalised services, targeted marketing and new business creation. Nakamura-san shared a successful use case with Audi Japan, where Docomo’s segmentation helped the automaker reach customers with a strong interest in electric vehicles. The result was a significant increase in dealership visit rates and a notable rise in new customer engagement.
Docomo has also embedded AI deeply within its network operations. Silent hardware failures, which previously were often discovered only after customer complaints, can now be detected proactively. AI also enables early identification of device related issues that arise from complex interactions between specific hardware and spectrum conditions. This allows the operator to act before performance degradation becomes visible to subscribers.
Looking ahead to 6G, Nakamura-san emphasised that AI must be native to the design of future networks. AI will optimise the network while the network itself will be designed to serve AI driven applications. This mutual reinforcement is central to Docomo’s AI centric network concept. The ambition is to reduce human error, minimise outages, improve resilience in disaster prone environments and maximise customer experience.
Docomo is collaborating globally on 6G research, including work with Nokia and SK Telecom on an AI native interface. One promising line of research is pilotless transmission. Today’s radio systems use pilot signals to estimate channel conditions, but these signals create overhead. By applying AI on both the transmitter and receiver sides, Docomo tested the feasibility of reducing or eliminating pilots. In indoor trials, static measurements showed immediate gains due to the removal of pilot overhead, while dynamic measurements also delivered positive results despite channel fluctuations. Nakamura-san stressed that more trials are needed across different environments, but the early findings indicate strong potential for efficiency improvements in 6G.
As he concluded, Nakamura-san reinforced that progress in both 5G and 6G will depend on collaboration across the industry, particularly with partners that possess deep expertise in AI. Docomo sees AI as an essential tool for building resilient, efficient and high performing networks and is preparing for a future where AI permeates every layer of the system.
His talk is embedded below:
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