On September 18, at a leading conference focused at the intersection of technology and policy held in Washington, D.C., Princeton researchers made recommendations for a coordinated strategy for investing in wireless in an age of increasing demand from artificial intelligence.

Mihir Kshirsagar, from Princeton’s Center for Information Technology Policy (CITP), in collaboration with Kaushik Sengupta, a professor in electrical and computer engineering, presented the recommendations in a paper at the Telecommunications Policy Research Conference on Sept 18.

The paper — Maximizing NextG Benefits: A Policy Framework to Advance Spectrum Allocation, Infrastructure Investment, and Wireless Leadership — was well-received by conference attendees, said Sengupta, who co-leads Princeton’s NextG corporate affiliate program (CAP) for wireless technology. The paper presents an analysis of policy considerations spanning spectrum management, infrastructure, research and development, and global collaboration to enable a thriving wireless ecosystem.
“We made the case grounded in technical analysis for why sustained government commitment and coordinated industrial strategy can accelerate technology leadership while maintaining competitive markets,” said Kshirsagar.

Sengupta emphasized the key finding of the research: “Wireless networks will be an important backbone in the AI infrastructure space—this will lead to fundamental shifts in traffic patterns compared to the current use cases. We have to be prepared for it if the US is to lead the space.”

Sengupta and Kshirsagar co-wrote the paper with industry representatives Ed Knapp from American Tower, Mischa Dohler from Ericsson, and Junyi Li from Qualcomm, with regulatory guidance from Ari Fitzgerald from Hogan Lovells. While American Tower, Ericsson and Qualcomm are member organizations of the NextG CAP, each of the industry authors wrote in their personal capacity.

The NextG CAP offers companies direct access to a dynamic and tightly knit community of academic researchers and industry leaders who share a passion for advancing the next generation of communication technologies and addressing challenges through collaborative research.

“Multi-sector analysis and road-mapping of the type we did with this work are greatly enhanced by the interactions and collaboration we’ve developed in the NextG community,” said Sengupta. “The potential impact of these recommendations reaches far beyond teaching and research on campus, to technologies that most of our society use every day.”