An Intelligent User Plane to Support In-Network Computing in 6G Networks

Driven by the development of programmable networking hardware, In-network Computing (INC) has gained a considerable amount of attention in recent years. However, INC has so far barely been studied in the context of mobile networks, despite the vast advantages shown for fixed networks, such as latency or traffic reduction. Motivated by an Augmented Reality (AR) use-case, our work envisions an INC-enabled Intelligent User Plane (IUP) for 6G networks, which allows offloading computational tasks to UP entities having enhanced computational capabilities. The 6G IUP thus helps to keep mobile end-devices lighter and supports meeting the stringent delay requirements of novel applications, such as AR. Besides elaborating on the involved prospects and challenges, we identify key enablers for realizing the INC-enabled IUP. We show that embedding INC into the 6G system entails major changes in the architecture, as compared to the current 5G design.