Realizing the Metaverse in the 6G Era with AI-Enabled Network Orchestration

• Published in: IEEE network Vol. 37; no. 2; pp. 78 - 85
• Main Authors: Aloqaily, Moayad, Bouachir, Ouns, Ridhawi, Ismaeel Al, Guizani, Mohsen
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01.03.2023; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: 6G mobile communication; Artificial intelligence; Cloud computing; Data management; Deep learning; Dynamic scheduling; Edge computing; Extended reality; Federated learning; Machine learning; Management systems; Metaverse; Mobility management; Resource allocation; Resource management; Synchronism; Synchronization; Virtual reality
• ISSN: 0890-8044; 1558-156X
• DOI: 10.1109/MNET.002.2200271

The advancements in computational capabilities, communication, and data management technologies, have accelerated the realization of the metaverse vision. Extended Reality (XR) technology facilitates an immersive virtual world to enable new social experiences. The 6G communication and networking infrastructure is a significant enabler for the metaverse experience. Interactive immersive applications require the exchange of massive amounts of data with minimal delay to achieve optimal synchronization, precision, and accuracy across metaverse participants. Based on a combination of real and virtual objects, these interactive immersive applications will exchange huge amounts of data across the participants (e.g., biometric information). Thus, dynamic computing resources are one crucial challenge to be handled. This represents a main challenge to network management systems. This article presents an intelligent and flexible architecture that enables dynamic end-to-end orchestration of the available network and computing resources. It incorporates the advancements in cloud and edge computing together with contemporary Artificial Intelligence (Al) techniques, such as Deep Learning (DL) and Federated Learning (FL), to dynamically fine-tune the allocation and monitoring of network resources. The proposed solution adapts Al near the end-user for prompt application-specific resource allocation, data caching, and mobility management. The article also provides an open discussion of some of the challenges and future directions of metaverse orchestration when applying 6G.