New Delhi [India], October 7 (ANI): India’s advanced 5G network will be critical to boosting manufacturing productivity, enabling wider adoption of artificial intelligence and laying the foundation for the transition to 6G, said Andres Vicente, Global CEO, Ericsson.
Addressing the India Mobile Congress 2026, Vicente said that the “Make in India” push across industries could boost manufacturing productivity by enabling greater flexibility in production processes.
Stressing that manufacturing is becoming a “central piece of the Indian economy,” he said and added, “5G will be a very important technology to improve manufacturing capacity.”
“All the Make in India effort across the different industries can improve productivity by having more flexibility in the way we manufacture,” he said.
Vicente further highlighted the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into telecom networks as another key focus area, noting that investments in data centre computing capacity alone would not be enough to bring AI capabilities to end users without high-performance networks.
“Another focus area is the introduction of AI into the networks,” he added, noting that a lot of investment is done to bring compute capacity to data centres for better models for AI.
However, he said, “That will not reach the end customer unless you have 5G networks because AI will require a different level of performance of the networks. So, we need to prepare the networks for AI and that means that uplink will become more and more relevant.”
He added that telecom networks will need to evolve to meet AI-related performance requirements, including greater emphasis on uplink capabilities.
Speaking to ANI on the sidelines of the event, he said, “India has made a huge investment in deploying 5G.”
He further said, “5G deployment across the world, on average, in terms of population coverage is 45%, India is 95%,” adding India is now “ready” for the next wave of connectivity, with advanced network capabilities opening up new use cases such as autonomous networks, autonomous transportation, physical AI, robotics and humanoids.
On the other hand, Ericsson India Managing Director Nitin Bansal said India's existing 5G infrastructure provides an important foundation for the eventual rollout of 6G.
Speaking to ANI, he said, “5G network has to be robust...we are very proud that we have a very very good 5G network, which is deployed...using 5G advanced and 5G standalone. So, that's a very important stepping stone towards 6G.”
Additionally, he noted that Ericsson is also working on “what kind of spectrum is needed for launching 6G services.” (ANI)
India’s advanced 5G network to drive manufacturing productivity, AI adoption, pave way for 6G: Ericsson CEO
