IMDEA Networks strengthens its leadership in 6G research with new infrastructures funded by NextGenerationEU funds

IMDEA Networks has significantly strengthened its research capabilities in advanced 5G and future 6G networks through the execution of the ADVANCE-6G, TEST-6G, and INES projects, which focused on the acquisition, integration, and deployment of state-of-the-art scientific and technical infrastructures.

These projects, completed in December 2025, were funded by the Ministry for Digital Transformation and the Civil Service through the Recovery, Transformation, and Resilience Plan (PRTR) and by the European Union—NextGenerationEU. They have provided IMDEA Networks with robust, open, and multifaceted experimental platforms, prepared to address the major technological challenges of future communications, which positions the Institute as a leading reference in research on cellular networks, quantum computing, and distributed networked computing at the European level.

From the laboratory to real-world environments

One of the main achievements of these projects has been the transformation of limited testing environments into an integrated, scalable, and distributed infrastructure, allowing experimentation both in the laboratory and in real-world scenarios.

In collaboration with the Carlos III University of Madrid (UC3M), the experimental network of the SLICES-Madrid node has been expanded, extending coverage to both indoor and outdoor areas of the university campus and integrating various wireless, Internet of Things (IoT), edge computing and quantum communication technologies, including sub-6 GHz, and millimeter-wave and terahertz bands, intertwined with distributed and secure computing architectures, artificial intelligence infrastructure and support for quantum key distribution. This expansion has enabled the validation of new connectivity and compute-intensive service provisioning solutions under real-use conditions, such as mobility, interference, or high device density.

Additionally, a new data center has been created at IMDEA Networks to host developed experimental platforms, ensuring high-performance computing, abundant protected storage, and 100 Gbps connectivity, as well as secure operation and readiness for future growth.

Advanced experimentation

"The TEST-6G project has significantly transformed IMDEA Networks' experimental capabilities, consolidating the Institute as the core of the SLICES-Madrid node within the European ESFRI SLICES-RI initiative," says Carlos Jesús Bernardos, part-time researcher at IMDEA Networks and member of the project team.

Thanks to TEST-6G, the facilities have evolved from an advanced laboratory into a European reference testbed for 6G and beyond research, oriented to shared use by the international scientific community.

Within this framework, the Institute was equipped with high-performance computing capabilities, specifically oriented to the training and validation of artificial intelligence models applied to network management. In addition, TEST-6G enabled progress toward deterministic networks, with strict latency and reliability guarantees, and the validation of 5G and 6G technologies in real physical scenarios using advanced robotics and sensors, overcoming the limitations of purely software-based simulation.

Advanced radio infrastructures and access in real environments

The ADVANCE-6G project focused on expanding and diversifying radio access capabilities, transferring research from the laboratory to real environments.

For this purpose, specific testbeds were developed to experiment with realistic 5G and 6G architectures. These include a high-order multiband MIMO platform, oriented to advanced communications and the integration of communications and sensing (ISAC), as well as an NG-RAN testbed based on software-defined radios, which facilitates the validation of new solutions at the physical and radio access levels.

"These infrastructures, together with the use of millimeter-wave bands, have strengthened IMDEA Networks' ability to validate advanced 5G and 6G architectures as well as Wi-Fi technologies under realistic propagation, mobility, and shared network conditions," explains Joerg Widmer, Research Director at the Institute and Principal Investigator of ADVANCE-6G.

Artificial intelligence, IoT, and quantum security

Another fundamental pillar of these projects has been the deployment of a comprehensive ecosystem of infrastructures for edge computing and artificial intelligence applied embedded and distributed into communication networks, including platforms for the generation, optimization and maintenance of cyber-physical systems, fraud detection, remote sensing systems based on network metadata, an IoT Living Lab with real devices with extensions for smart agriculture, tools for the creation and validation of machine learning solutions in B5G/6G networks, and testbeds for explainable intelligent network and service management algorithms.

Within this context, the INES project contributed to the creation and validation of an end-to-end intelligent network, designed for the development of scenarios integrating the IoT and cyber-physical systems, such as industrial, urban, or critical infrastructure environments. This network has reinforced IMDEA Networks' ability to provide advanced experimental platforms and research tools to the scientific community, as part of its national and international collaborations.

In addition, a fully operational quantum communications infrastructure has been implemented, integrated into the experimental ecosystem, enabling research in quantum cryptography, secure key distribution, quantum consensus strategies for open quantum systems, and controlled attack scenario evaluation, anticipating the security requirements of future 6G networks.

"The Institute's integrated connect–compute infrastructure is now in place to support the next wave of system-oriented research on service deployment and intelligent orchestration for 6G networks and novel services, enabling rapid prototyping, rigorous experimentation, reduced knowledge-transfer time, and significantly reduced time-to-market", emphasizes Vincenzo Mancuso, Research Associate Professor at the Institute and Principal Investigator of INES.

A long-term investment with impact

The set of developed infrastructures constitutes an open, flexible, and cross-cutting laboratory, already serving as a foundation for current and future research projects, as well as collaborations with universities and international partners, and will continue supporting new initiatives over the next decade.

With the completion of the ADVANCE-6G, TEST-6G, and INES projects, IMDEA Networks strengthens its position as a reference center in communication network research, increases its competitiveness at the European level, and contributes directly to the development of key technologies for the digital transformation of society.

Provided by IMDEA Networks Institute