NSF Launches Program to Build Secure Next-Gen Wireless Systems

The National Science Foundation is partnering with the Department of Defense and big tech companies to build robust post-5G wireless systems. 

The collaboration falls under NSF’s Resilient and Intelligent NextG Systems program. RINGS offers up to $40 million in funding to promote the development of secure, resilient and intelligent next-generation networks, Nextgov reported Tuesday.

Thyaga Nandagopal, acting deputy division director of NSF’s Division of Computer and Network Systems, touted RINGS as the largest research and development partnership in NSF history in terms of the number of direct partnerships and funding.

In the program’s solicitation, the NSF zeroed in on integrating resilience in the buildout of such networks from the get-go. The document describes resilience as the ability to endure malicious attacks, component failures, and natural and human-induced disruptions.

Among other things, RINGS aims to provide support for underlying technologies that will be needed to power the future wireless networks over the next 20 years.

NSF seeks proposals from two- and four-year institutions of higher education to actualize the program. Proposals, which are due July 29, must include approaches to address various research vectors, including autonomy, merging digital/physical/virtual worlds, scalable device-to-edge-to-cloud continuum.

Nandagopal expects to see early results well before the end of the 5G era.

NSF is poised to make significant investments beyond mobile communications networks. Lawmakers are pushing for a $100 billion investment in the agency for the creation of a technology and innovation directorate that would promote strategies and R&D efforts focused on quantum computing and information systems, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, semiconductors and robotics.