The next generation of mobile telecommunications will not simply be 5G’s successor. 6G is set to become a key enabling infrastructure for artificial intelligence, advanced manufacturing and critical services. That is why the race to shape its standards, security requirements and supply chains has already begun — well before commercialization.
Driving the news. That is the message behind the U.S.-led International Call to Action on 6G, which the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington has helped amplify — first with the initiative’s launch in late July, and now with a special issue under its Betting on America series.
- The discussion brought together representatives from 25 governments and industry around a strategic premise: Washington sees 6G as critical to competition in artificial intelligence, critical infrastructure and advanced manufacturing — essentially, the technologies that will matter now and for decades to come.
The bigger picture. The Trump administration also recognizes that the ecosystem needed to sustain this technological transition cannot be built by the United States alone. It needs allies.
- That acknowledgment is particularly relevant at a time when Washington is facing criticism over strains in some of its relationships with allies. On 6G, however, the U.S. approach is explicitly coalition-based.
Enter Italy. Rome joined the Call to Action for 6G Leadership and Security in July, when the United States, through the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, launched the initiative together with a group of international partners.
- The goal is to reach the next generation of wireless networks with coordination already in place around security, resilience, interoperability, standards and trusted supply chains.
Why it matters. This marks a change of method from the 5G competition. Then, the United States and its Western allies found themselves responding to the international expansion of Chinese vendors after Huawei and ZTE had already secured significant positions across global markets.
- With 6G, Washington wants to move earlier: build a coalition while the technology, standards and market are still taking shape, and influence from the outset the rules and industrial ecosystem underpinning the future digital infrastructure.
The Italian angle. Italy was represented at the launch by Alessio Butti, Undersecretary of State to the Presidency of the Council of Ministers with responsibility for technological innovation. Worth noting what he said.
- His message provides a window into how Rome wants to position itself in the emerging international 6G competition: not simply as a user of the future technology, but as a partner in building its ecosystem.
- “The next generation of wireless technology is not simply an upgrade, it is a strategic choice; one that will shape our economic competitiveness, our national security, and our digital sovereignty for decades to come,” Butti said.
- Competitiveness, security and digital sovereignty, in other words, are three dimensions of the same race.
Italy’s pitch. Butti also pointed to Italy’s own capacity to contribute. He invoked the country’s scientific and technological tradition — from Alessandro Volta and Antonio Meucci to Guglielmo Marconi and Federico Faggin — and linked it to Italian expertise today in artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, space and cybersecurity.
- Italy’s position at the heart of the Mediterranean adds another dimension. In Butti’s framing, geography gives the country a natural role as a hub connecting Europe, the Atlantic and emerging technological ecosystems.
Zoom in: The future networks. The politically most relevant part of Butti’s remarks concerned how future networks should be built.
- Italy supports the principle of technological neutrality, in line with the European Union’s approach: governments should set strategic objectives rather than select individual technologies, allowing different solutions to compete on their merits.
- But innovation and national or international security, Butti argued, should not be treated as competing priorities. They reinforce each other. If 6G networks are to become critical infrastructure, openness, security and trustworthiness will have to be embedded into their design.
The AI question. This is where Rome sees a fundamental break with previous generations of telecommunications.
- “For the first time we are building networks that are AI native. This changes how we think about security. Trusted vendors and secure hardware remain essential, but we must also ask: can we trust the algorithms that will run our networks?” Butti said.
- That question expands the security perimeter. The issue is no longer only who manufactures network equipment or where components come from — questions that dominated the geopolitical confrontation over 5G. It is also about who develops the algorithms running the networks, how they are trained and how they can be scrutinized and controlled.
The Italian proposal. Rome therefore wants to add another principle to the established concept of security by design: trust by design.
- “Therefore Italy proposes an additional principle alongside ‘security by design’: ‘trust by design’. AI native networks must be secure, transparent, explainable, and accountable. Our goal is not just faster networks, but trustworthy ones,” Butti said.
- The proposal captures the difference between the 5G contest and the one the United States and its partners are preparing to fight over 6G. Trusted vendors and secure hardware remain essential, but they are no longer sufficient. If AI is embedded into the operation of the networks themselves, trust will also have to extend to the systems managing them and the rules governing their decisions.
What to watch. This is the terrain on which Rome wants to make its contribution to the emerging coalition. For Butti, no country can build 6G alone: it will require concrete, action-oriented partnerships among governments, industry and academia.
- Italy’s participation in the Call to Action therefore goes beyond alignment with Washington on telecommunications security. Rome wants to be involved before technological choices become entrenched — helping define the principles on which the next generation of networks will be built.
