# Vision, Enabling Technologies, and Scenarios for a 6G-Enabled Internet of Verticals (6G-IoV)
## 1 Introduction  
The 5G in conjunction with IoT, AI and Cloud technologies will drive a significant digital transformation to fulfill the requirements of the fully connected, digitalized carbon-neutral society and industries [1]. Unlike the previous generations, 5G is offering not only ultrafast (20 Gbps peak data-rates) but also ultra-reliable, ultra-low-latency (1 ms) and massive connectivity capabilities. In comparison with the previous generations, 5G also comes with significant architectural innovations including network slicing, private networks, and edge computing/edge-AI [1]. The 5G-enabled, AI-assisted IoT has the capability of connecting both digital and physical entities, giving rise to fruitful applications including smart cities, smart homes, industry 4.0 and society 5.0 [2]. Enabled by network slicing, in the 5G era, communication services are transitioning from mass connectivity provisioning to per service level and vertical customization. Edge solutions and private networks help to overcome network performance limits, e.g., in terms of latency and deterministic delivery. Local data processing enabled by 5G private networks help to achieve the stringent security and privacy requirements of vertical sectors.  
Armed with the above features, 5G is proving successful as the first generation of mobile communication systems to achieve the long-anticipated expansion of operators' connectivity services into vertical sectors, enabling new types of usage and new Business-to-Business (BBB) opportunities and communities [3; 4; 5]. Prominent success story examples of 5G for verticals include smart manufacturing, industrial automation and smart grids. There is already a rapidly growing literature on requirements, challenges and solutions and achievements, both from a technology and business perspective, of 5G services expanding into vertical sectors.  
5G indeed made a significant contribution towards developing low-latency networks by providing new frequency bands, such as the millimeter-wave (mmWave) spectrum, advanced spectrum usage and management in licensed and unlicensed bands and a complete redesign of the core network. However, the rapidly growing IoT networks require a data rate on the order of terabits per second, which may exceed even the capacities of the existing 5G systems. The 6G systems are being designed to meet the demands of a seamless connectivity and ubiquitous intelligence. The current research focuses on enabling communication technologies, network architectures and integrating intelligence into the 6G networks [6]. Table 1 lists the 5G and 6G research trends from 2018 to 2030, as defined in [7]. There has been very little research, however, on taking a more \"transversal\" view in terms of the longer-term implications in the 6G era, which will enable the transformation of multiple verticals into new services and businesses, and its impact on the vertical digital ecosystem as a whole.  
The purpose of this paper is to take the first step in filling this important gap. In particular, we envisage that in the longer term the convergence of 6G \"networkization\" of vertical sectors with their continued digitalization, and integration with AI and cloud/edge computing will pave the way for a new type of Internet, which virtualizes orchestrates and federates entire vertical entities and services, hence ushering in the era of the 6G \"Internet of Verticals\" (IoV). The main contributions of the paper are as follows:  
1. We provide an overview of the key 5G and 6G architectural enablers that will underpin our vision of 6G IoV.
2. We describe a number of prominent IoV transformation scenarios, namely the Internet of Cloud Manufacturing, the Internet of Robotics and the Internet of Smart Energy Grids.  
The rest of this paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, reviewing key architectural and networking innovations is required to support the IoV vision. We describe key IoV applications scenarios in Section 3, and conclude the paper in Section 4.