one6G releases new White Paper on 6G-enabled digital twins
one6G Work Item “Digital twin and metaverse” (WI104) contributors just published their latest white paper at the one6G Summit 2025 in Bologna, Italy. The paper, titled “Towards 6G-Enabled Digital Twins: Technical Recommendations,” is a joint work of one6G WG1 and WG4.
Scope
Digital Twins are virtual representations of physical systems with a two-way data exchange. While already common in industrial automation, their use is rapidly expanding into new sectors like smart cities, robotics, and AI. The authors believe that digital twins will be essential for many future 6G applications, and their new paper focuses on two main types: application-level (representing a physical system like a city or robot) and network-level (representing the network itself).
A platform for networked systems
The paper highlights a significant gap in current technology: the lack of solutions that can efficiently mirror the behavior of networked physical systems. Most digital twin tools today focus on either physical or network components separately. The paper emphasizes the need for a unified platform that can integrate both. The goal is to drive the development of such a platform by offering technical recommendations based on a survey of one6G members and an analysis of the current state of digital twin technology.
The document details key characteristics and presents survey results on tooling and requirements. It also outlines high-level and technical recommendations for a combined physical/network digital twin platform, focusing on co-simulation, interoperability, extensibility, flexibility, and adaptability. It even looks ahead to integrating digital twins with generative AI.
Next steps for an open platform
The authors anticipate that future collaboration between one6G WG1 and WG4 will focus on implementing an open, 6G-enabled digital twin platform, which could serve the needs of one6G members as well as the wider community of researchers, engineers, and professionals working on 6G communications.
You can download the full white paper in a PDF format for free from here.