Electrical engineer Ian F. Akyildiz is founder and Editor in Chief of ITU Journal on Future and Evolving Technologies. ITU is a United Nations agency for information and communication technologies.

The IoE (internet of everything) aims to network everything around and even within us, which will lead to interfaces that are spread all the way from macro to nano scales. While several macro scale IoE implementations exist, the advances in nanotechnology and communication engineering paved the way for a proposal for Internet of NanoThings (IoNT) based on synthesized materials, electronic circuits, and interaction through electromagnetic waves.

https://ioe.eng.cam.ac.uk/Research/Research-Areas

Although, IoNT (internet of nano things) systems can be used in a number of scenarios, their biocompatibility remains an issue for intra-body deployment. Thus, the Internet of Bio-Nano Things (IoBNT) proposal was brought forward. Under the IoE framework, IoBNT architecture revolves around establishing the capability to communicate and to network with biological systems, which can be used to perform operations such as intra-body sensing, actuation, and connectivity control.

https://www.symocads.research.fau.eu/2025/03/10/iobnt-project-meeting/

Will you volunteer to connect your body to 6G?

The majority of current wireless communication systems are based on radio frequency (RF) radio waves. Although perfectly suited for many telecommunications tasks, nano- or micro-scale communicating nodes, e.g. interacting with biological cells in the human body and/or operating in difficult environments (e.g. liquids), must rely on alternative communication paradigms and technologies. Examples of applications include communicating nanorobots (i.e. mobile Nanodevices that patrol human blood vessels for medical purposes, airborne molecular communication and sensing systems, and macro-level communications in industrial plants and pipeline networks containing water, oil, or gases. Communication in such environments can occur through the use of nano-sized particles as information carriers, including magnetic nanoparticles and biochemical molecules that can be detected by biological, chemical or physical means. The corresponding novel communications paradigm, called Molecular Communications (MK), is intended to complement traditional RF telecommunications networks and eventually become an integral part of 6G+ solutions, enabling revolutionary new services.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0010482521005011

https://ioe.eng.cam.ac.uk/Research/Research-Areas

https://www.dfki.de/en/web/research/projects-and-publications/project/iobnt

Video source: https://youtu.be/-NT8fyPmOJQ?si=HQ87BaVf0C30Tq5T