BLOCKCHAIN AND AI FOR BEYOND 5G NETWORKS
Blockchain-Based Data Security for Artificial Intelligence Applications in 6G Networks
Weiwei Li, Zhou Su, Ruidong Li, Kuan Zhang, and Yuntao Wang
Abstract
The sixth generation (6G) networks are expect-
ed to provide a fully connected world with ter-
restrial wireless and satellite communications
integration. The design concept of 6G networks
is to leverage artificial intelligence (AI) to pro-
mote the intelligent and agile development of
network services. Intelligent services inevitably
involve the processing of large amounts of data,
such as storage, computing, and analysis, such
that the data may be vulnerable to tampering or
contamination by attackers. In this article, we pro-
pose a blockchain-based data security scheme
for AI applications in 6G networks. Specifical-
ly, we first introduce the 6G architecture (i.e., a
space-air-ground-underwater integrated network).
Then we discuss two AI-enabled applications,
indoor positioning and autonomous vehicle, in
the context of 6G. Through a case study of an
indoor navigation system, we demonstrate the
effectiveness of blockchain in data security. The
integration of AI and blockchain is developed to
evaluate and optimize the quality of intelligent
service. Finally, we discuss several open issues
about data security in the upcoming 6G networks.
Introduction
6G is the sixth generation mobile communication
standard/technology, which mainly promotes the
development of the Internet of Things (IoT) [1].
6G networks will create a fully connected world
that integrates terrestrial wireless and satellite
communication. By integrating satellite commu-
nication into 6G mobile communication, global
and even underwater communications coverage
will be seamless in the 6G era. For instance, the
network signal can reach any remote village so
that patients in deep mountain areas can receive
telemedicine and children can receive tele-edu-
cation [2]. At present, many countries, including
China, the United States, the European Union,
and others, have intensively engaged in research
of 6G networks, which are expected to be devel-
oped in 2020 and officially put into commercial
use in 2030. Specifically, the two big technolog-
ical innovations of 6G are THz band and spatial
multiplexing. The THz frequency band refers to
100 GHz–10 THz, much higher than 5G, which
has abundant frequency resources and large sys-
tem capacity and can allow a large amount of
data to be transmitted in one second. The adop-
tion of spatial multiplexing technology will enable
a base station (BS) to simultaneously access hun-
Weiwei Li is with Shanghai University; Zhou Su is with Shanghai University and Xi’an Jiaotong University; Ruidong Li is with the National Institute of
Information and Communications Technology; Kuan Zhang is with the University of Nebraska–Lincoln; Yuntao Wang is with Xi’an Jiaotong University.
IEEE Network • November/December 2020
Authorized licensed use limited to: Government of Egypt - SPCESR - (EKB). Downloaded on March 17,2024 at 17:44:27 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
SU_LAYOUT.indd 31
dreds or even thousands of wireless connections.
Compared to previous generations, the future
6G has many advantages [3]. First, 6G will be an
autonomous network to bring people into a new
human- and machine-centric paradigm. Second,
6G will enable interaction and communication
with end devices in multiple ways, including neu-
ral signals, eyes, fingers, and so on. Third, 6G may
have more stringent requirements on reliability,
robustness, and resource efficiency to realize the
progress from network softwarization to intelli-
gentization.
In addition to the above advantages, the most
significant breakthrough of 6G may come from
artificial intelligence (AI). AI plays an important
role in designing and optimizing 6G architecture,
protocols, and resource allocation. Ubiquitous
AI applications, such as network resource man-
agement, network maintenance, smart home,
intelligent navigation, and intelligent healthcare,
will be provided from the core of 6G networks
to terminals. AI application aims to realize fully
autonomous services to perform human intelli-
gence. The AI-enabled system can accurately ana-
lyze input data and learn from it in order to utilize
that knowledge to flexibly tackle specific tasks
and goals [4]. We can expect that with the sup-
port of 6G networks, an unmanned aerial vehicle
(UAV) can reach the level of a top human pilot
through AI remote control under the condition of
its limited computing power. Similarly, a construc-
tion robot at a site can also complete a task with
AI. One of the important operations in all these
applications is big data analysis, which can signifi-
cantly improve the quality of service and optimize
the situational awareness of 6G networks. First,
we can mine historical data to obtain insights on
network performance, such as traffic evaluation
and energy efficiency. Second, the collected data
can be utilized to predict future events, such as
resource availability, and users’ preference and
behavior, for decision making. Third, through an
AI algorithm (e.g., machine learning), we can train
the specific behavior model to carry out outlier
detection or fault diagnosis.
In terms of guaranteeing accurate data analy-
sis, the secure data storage faces a big challenge.
Intuitively, machine learning has recently enabled
large advances in AI, but its data storage pattern
tends to be highly centralized. The data is usually
stored in a third entity, which is not fully trusted
and may be compromised through data leakage,
tampering, and so on, resulting in serious threats
to network service and even network paralysis
Digital Object Identifier:
10.1109/MNET.021.1900629
0890-8044/20/$25.00 © 2020 IEEE 31
11/19/20 3:13 PM

Space
GEO
MEO
LEO
B
Balloon UAV
Air
Aeroplane
UAV
Ground
Cloud
server BS
BS
mmWave
Edge
WiFi access 6G server
point V2V
Skyscraper
Remote area
6G
Underwater/sea
Smart home V2X
Ship
Autonomous vehicle
D2D 6G
Submarine
FIGURE 1. The architecture of 6G.
[5]. For example, for a dataset in the acquired
immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) statistical
system, the performance indicators of each data
(blood pressure, HIV, etc.) are collected from the
clinical trials on AIDS patients. If the data is stolen
or tampered, its analysis must be incorrect, which
affects the diagnosis of patients and reduces the
level of intelligent treatment. In another example,
in a vehicular network, vehicles need to obtain
the surrounding environment conditions in real
time, such as the distance from the nearest vehi-
cle and the congestion degree of the road ahead.
Sensing data should be uploaded to the cloud/
fog server for further analysis before instructions
are provided to the vehicle. Once the server is
compromised by attackers, it may destroy the nor-
mal driving of vehicles, which may even lead to
death. Therefore, how to store data and keep it
secure becomes very important for AI-enabled
applications in 6G networks.
These emerging threats motivate our research
on data security for 6G networks with high intelli-
gence. In this article, we first introduce the wire-
less network architecture of 6G. Then we discuss
several AI-enabled applications in 6G networks
including indoor positioning and autonomous
vehicles. Considering the potential security risks,
such as data tampering and forgery, during the
data analysis, which is an essential stage of AI
applications, we propose a blockchain-enabled
data storage scheme to secure the source data.
Through a case study of a crowdsourcing-based
indoor navigation system, we validate the immu-
tability of workers’ reputation values using the
smart contract in blockchain. Finally, we provide
an outlook on several potential research direc-
32
Authorized licensed use limited to: Government of Egypt - SPCESR - (EKB). Downloaded on March 17,2024 at 17:44:27 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
SU_LAYOUT.indd 32
tions from the blockchain security and data usage
perspectives.
tHe ArcHItecture oF 6g
In this section, we present a potential architecture
of 6G, which is a space-air-ground-underwater
integrated four-tier network shown in Fig. 1. The
6G features a satellite-based IoT rather than fiber
optics and BS, and satellite launch and deploy-
ment are mainly done in space. Satellite commu-
nication plays an important and even critical role
in 6G. Neil McRae, the chief network architect at
BT group, regards 6G as a “5G + satellite“ net-
work; that is, the satellite network is integrated
on the basis of 5G to achieve global coverage.
Therefore, 6G networks can provide users with
flexible and unlimited space communications.
Space network. A large number of satellites
are deployed in the space network. According
to the different orbital altitude, communication
satellites can be divided into low Earth orbit (LEO)
at 500 km–2000 km, medium Earth orbit (MEO)
at 2000 km–36,000 km, and high geostationary
Earth orbit (GEO) at 36,000 km. Communica-
tions among satellites in high orbits and commu-
nications between high orbits and UAVs can use
visible light lasers. In the multi-layered satellite
communication system, the broadcast and multi-
cast technologies can be utilized to enhance the
network capacity and significantly mitigate traf-
fic burden. In addition, many services, including
emergency rescue, Earth observation and naviga-
tion, and so on, are provided based on the global
coverage of the space network.
Air network. The air network is equipped with
many types of mobile aircraft (UAVs, drones,
balloons, airplanes, etc.). These mobile aircraft
units are flying BSs in nature, running at different
altitudes. Aircraft among different altitudes or
different varieties can establish aircraft–aircraft
links to provide services for the ground together.
The air network has the characteristics of low
cost, convenient deployment, and wide cover-
age, which can provide regional wireless access
services [6].
Ground network. Because millimeter-wave
(mmWave) and THz communications suffer from
very big path loss, the density of BSs will be very
high. Moreover, 6G will use nanoantennas, which
are broadly deployed everywhere, including road-
sides, villages, shopping malls, airports, and other
places, allowing people in remote areas to enjoy
intelligent network services. Combined with the
aforementioned satellite communication network,
6G can basically achieve seamless global cover-
age. In addition, user services will be more intel-
ligent, and mobile devices can directly achieve
device-to-device (D2D) communication with high
information transmission rate.
Underwater network. An underwater network
can offer communication services for wide-sea
and deep-sea activities, which can promote the
development of an ocean observation system.
Furthermore, an underwater network can syn-
thetically utilize all kinds of underwater commu-
nication means, including submarine, unmanned
surface vehicle (USV) and sensor, and more, to
build an underwater collaborative operation net-
work, and realize intercommunication with the
other three-tier networks.
IEEE Network • November/December 2020
11/19/20 3:13 PM

6G
Whe re am I? Case 1
Entrance 1
A C
How to? Case 2
HUAWEI D
E
Case 3
Whe re is the water?
nofrills
Entrance 2
FIGURE 2. The AI application of indoor positioning in 6G.
AI APPlIcAtIons And motIVAtIon For blockcHAIn
AI APPlIcAtIons
With the improvement of intelligence in 6G wire-
less networks, more and more AI applications will
appear on the edge of the wireless network. The
6G networks can provide AI-enabled applications
for various mobile devices leveraging advanced
wireless communications and mobile computing
technologies. Specifically, 6G may realize human
brain level AI calculation and real-time control in
some scenarios. In this section, we introduce two
key AI applications, indoor positioning and the
autonomous vehicle, in the context of 6G wireless
networks.
Indoor Positioning. Indoor positioning is to
know the real-time position or movement track of
people indoors through technical means [7]. For
example, you can utilize indoor positioning tech-
nology to find the restaurant you want in a large
shopping mall. At present, indoor positioning has
been widely used in indoor navigation, mobile
payment, in-store shopping guides, people flow
analysis, item tracking, and other human related
activities. In Fig. 2, we present some scenarios for
indoor positioning.
Indoor positioning plays an important role in
emergency rescue, fire fighting, safety supervi-
sion, and so on. In the case of earthquakes, fires,
and other emergencies, the critical stage of res-
cue is to quickly localize the trapped people as
shown in Fig.2, case 1. Especially when the layout
of the building changes because of an emergen-
cy, it is difficult to quickly determine the location
of personnel with experience. Therefore, indoor
positioning technology can provide powerful
technical support and guarantee the safety of
trapped people during emergency rescue.
Indoor positioning can record a user’s activity
track, and link the user’s position with behavior
and interest preference behind it through ana-
lyzing these data, shown in Fig. 2, cases 2 and
3. Therefore, it has great commercial value and
application prospects to mine and analyze indoor
location data. For example, through the analysis
of consumers’ activities, we can obtain their fre-
quency and stay time in a shopping mall. As a
result, we can further analyze the interests and
IEEE Network • November/December 2020
Authorized licensed use limited to: Government of Egypt - SPCESR - (EKB). Downloaded on March 17,2024 at 17:44:27 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
SU_LAYOUT.indd 33
ON Office north
LOWE’S Office s outh
B OS
Case 4
Exit 1 Under ground
F parking lot
Fire
MEAT AND EGG
How to?
HOT WIND
G
I H K
CONGEE QUEEN
Exit 2
Food court
Washroom Elevator
J Coffee machine
Vending machine
Information flow
preferences of consumers and the popularity of
the shopping mall, which can offer powerful busi-
ness benefits.
In addition, 6G-based indoor positioning
technology combined with traditional position-
ing technology can provide seamless indoor and
outdoor navigation services. For example, it not
only can it navigate mobile users to a shopping
mall, but it can also localize a car in a large and
complex underground parking lot as shown in Fig.
2, case 4.
Autonomous Vehicle. 6G technology enables
a wide range of continuous collaboration between
intelligent entities to deal with complex challeng-
es in real time and discuss solutions to complex
problems together. Therefore, 6G combined with
AI technology is expected to solve the problem
of autonomous vehicle scheduling in smart cities.
In the 6G era, autonomous vehicles can uti-
lize onboard sensors to acquire the surrounding
environment, and control the direction and speed
according to the information of a vehicle’s posi-
tion, obstacles, and so on to safely and reliably
drive on the road. Autonomous vehicles not only
know their locations, surroundings, and road con-
ditions, but also can communicate with other
road users, such as cyclists, pedestrians, and other
autonomous vehicles. For example, when an
autonomous vehicle comes to a specific intersec-
tion, it can quickly establish a real-time dynamic
network related to the intersection and immedi-
ately suspend the network after passing, as shown
in Fig. 3. Then the uploaded data can be explored
to plan the driving route and calculate the driving
time.
Of course, the autonomous vehicle is just one
example of a large-scale intelligent entities collab-
oration in 6G networks. Other application fields
may include financial market monitoring, health-
care optimization planning, and advance forecast-
ing — the ability to anticipate events and quickly
respond, a scope previously unimaginable.
motIVAtIon For blockcHAIn
Big data analysis is indispensable for AI applica-
tions in 6G networks, and its data training through
customized servers is very popular. Without loss
of generality, the edge mobile devices upload the
33
11/19/20 3:13 PM
 Cloud server
V2X
communication
P
Base
station
Manned
vehicle
Dynamic
network
Autonomous
vehicle
Network
link
Data flow
FIGURE 3. The AI application of an autonomous vehicle in 6G.
data they acquire to a third entity (i.e., a server).
Then the server conducts lots of analysis accord-
ing to some learning algorithms. This is a central-
ized training mode, that is, a server runs a specific
model to train and verify the dataset. However,
the centralized storage and management feature
in AI applications may incur threats to data secu-
rity (e.g., stealing or malicious tampering due to
compromise of the server), resulting in privacy
violation and interference with normal network
function. Since the authenticity of source data
cannot be guaranteed, it may easily lead to incor-
rect decision making in AI services. To solve this
problem, the most common method is to encrypt
the data, which is presented in [8] by J. Gubbi
et al. This method mainly focuses on limiting the
access of the untrusted cloud server to data, but
the cloud server cannot analyze big data in AI
applications due to its inability to handle encrypt-
ed data. Therefore, a decentralized and secure
data sharing technique without a so-called trust-
ed third entity or intermediary urgently needs to
appear; hence, blockchain shows a good applica-
tion prospect in future 6G.
blockcHAIn-enAbled dAtA securItY
Blockchain [9], as the underlying and key tech-
nology of Bitcoin, is essentially a distributed
ledger, which can guarantee that each transac-
tion’s information is immutable and unforgeable
through an encryption algorithm. Dai et al. [10]
investigated the integration between blockchain
and AI in 6G wireless networks and proposed
a secure architecture. Zhang et al. [11] inves-
tigated blockchain-based spectrum sharing in
6G wireless networks and presented the influ-
ence of AI on the realization of autonomous and
innovatively designed wireless networks. Nodes
participating in the blockchain system may not
belong to the same organization and also do not
need to trust each other. Blockchain data are
jointly maintained by all nodes, and each node
can obtain a full copy of records. Compared
to the traditional technology of bookkeeping,
blockchain adopts a decentralized accounting
method, and consensus can be reached without
centralized control.
34
Authorized licensed use limited to: Government of Egypt - SPCESR - (EKB). Downloaded on March 17,2024 at 17:44:27 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
SU_LAYOUT.indd 34
6G
According to the different participants, block-
chain can be categorized into three types: public
blockchain, private blockchain, and consortium
blockchain [12]. The public blockchain indicates
that the confirmed transaction can be sent from
any group or individual in the world. A private
blockchain is a company or group that has exclu-
sive access to the blockchain. A consortium
blockchain indicates that its consensus mecha-
nism is controlled by pre-selected nodes. Specif-
ically, in addition to the distributed ledger and
cryptography algorithm, blockchain has two other
technological innovations, consensus mechanism
and smart contract.
• Consensus mechanism is how to reach a
consensus among all nodes participating
in an account to find the effectiveness of
a record. It is a means of identification
and tampering prevention. Two main dif-
ferent consensus mechanisms are present-
ed in blockchain, proof of stake (PoS)
and proof of work (PoW), which are suit-
able for different application scenarios to
achieve a balance between effi ciency and
safety [13]. For example, PoW is adopt-
ed in the Bitcoin system, and only when
more than 51 percent of accounting nodes
in the whole network are controlled is it
likely to forge a nonexistent record. How-
ever, when enough nodes are added to
the blockchain, this is virtually impossible.
Therefore, the consensus mechanism has
enough ability to eliminate the possibility
of fraud.
• Smart contract is to automatically execute
some predefined rules and provisions based
on the trusted and immutable data in block-
chain. It can be applied to many industries,
such as insurance, healthcare, telecom-
munications, and energy. In the insurance
industry, a predefined compensation rule is
written into the smart contract in advance.
When the victim suffers a loss, the smart con-
tract checks if the information, such as medi-
cal expenses and the occurrence of risks, are
authentic so that victims can automatically
obtain compensation.
IEEE Network • November/December 2020
11/19/20 3:13 PM
 Block Block
Key secret
Trusted authority
Requests
Fog server
Results
Requesters
Reputation
Consensus
Feedback Block
Dataset
header
Smart
contractt
Blockchain platform
FIGURE 4. The blockchain-enabled crowdsourced indoor navigation system.
cAse studY oF tHe blockcHAIn-enAbled
crowdsourced Indoor nAVIgAtIon sYstem
In this section, we first take the indoor naviga-
tion system as an example to materialize how
blockchain can be explored to secure AI-enabled
applications in 6G networks. We exploit the
crowdsourcing technology to select trustworthy
workers based on their reputation values to offer
path services. Then, through the security discus-
sion, we demonstrate that blockchain can effec-
tively prevent malicious workers (i.e., attackers)
from tampering with their reputation values.
sYstem model
The blockchain-enabled crowdsourced indoor
navigation system consists of four entities — fog
server, blockchain platform, trusted authority,
and participant users — shown in Fig. 4. Request-
ers can obtain the services they need simply
by uploading their location requests using their
smartphones.
Fog server. Since a fog server has powerful
computing abilities, it can be utilized to conduct
user management, task management, and outlier
detection [14]. Meanwhile, the fog server plays
the role of a computing node in the blockchain
environment, executing the consensus algorithm.
In addition, the fog server selects trustworthy
workers based on reputation value, which can
effectively improve the quality of path services.
Blockchain platform. The blockchain platform
serves as a medium for requesters and workers,
and can perform data storage in a decentralized
fashion. Requesters and workers can reach agree-
ment by transactions on the platform.
Trusted authority (TA). The trusted authori-
ty is responsible for key secret management,
which can be explored to authorize valid regis-
tration identities for participating users without
privacy exposure. Specifically, the introduction
of TA enables blockchain to intensively perform
non-tamperable data storage and multitudinous
task transactions.
IEEE Network • November/December 2020
Authorized licensed use limited to: Government of Egypt - SPCESR - (EKB). Downloaded on March 17,2024 at 17:44:27 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
SU_LAYOUT.indd 35
Block
path 1 path 2
Normal Level-1 attacker
Key secret
Content flow path 3
Process flow Level-2 attacker
Selection
Results B
Aim to A
Workers Incorrect destination
1 A
Results
Destination
Parent
block hash
B
Transit point
Participant users. Two types of participant
users exist in the navigation system: requesters
and workers. Requesters are a crowd of people
who demand location information. They take
smartphones or other portable electronic equip-
ment to send their location requirements to the
platform at random. At the end of each service,
they offer corresponding feedback ratings for
workers according to the quality of service. Work-
ers are responsible for providing the results (i.e.,
path information) to requesters.
In the blockchain-enabled crowdsourced
indoor navigation system, a smart contract can
be explored to describe the requester-worker
relationship. The smart contract is created in the
blockchain platform when a requester has a loca-
tion requirement and publishes its information.
Here, we consider the requester uploading his/
her requirement with the private key while work-
ers obtain the task using the public key. When a
worker uj wants to respond to the requirement,
the smart contract executes a validation function
denoted by Rep() to check if the worker’s rep-
utation value satisfies the selection criterion. If
the worker is qualified, he/she can successfully
respond to a task and follow contract function
Rep(). Specifically, two important algorithms, the
path detection algorithm and reputation manage-
ment algorithm, are performed in the fog server
and blockchain platform, respectively. Regarding
the path detection algorithm, the fog server eval-
uates the quality of the path provided, such as
whether it is the shortest path. When a worker
completes a task, his/her reputation value is auto-
matically updated by function Rep() based on
the results of path detection.
AttAcker model
We consider two levels of attackers accord-
ing to their offered path information. Normal
workers offer the shortest path, and their rep-
utation values increase by  R 1 after service.
When attackers initiate a level-1 attack, which
is to offer an incorrect destination, their reputa-
35
11/19/20 3:13 PM
 tion values decrease by R1 after service. When
attackers initiate a level-2 attack, offering a cor-
rect destination but with a detour, their reputa-
tion values decrease by R2 with R1 > R2. We
assume attackers and normal workers do not
change their identities in the whole service peri-
od. Obviously, the reputation values of attack-
ers may gradually decrease with the increasing
number of attacks, resulting in attackers tamper-
ing with their own reputation values in order to
increase service opportunities.

securItY dIscussIon
We analyze how blockchain technology ensures
the security of reputation values by smart contract
in the crowdsourced indoor navigation system. (a)
On one hand, to modify the reputation value in
one block, not only the PoW of the block but also
those of all subsequent blocks need to be recalcu-
lated, which is impossible for attackers to achieve.
On the other hand, each transaction record (i.e.,
each update of reputation value) needs to be veri-
fied by digital signature, which can prevent it from
being tampered with.
We compare the change of reputation value
between our system and a centralized data stor-
age system proposed in [15]. In Fig. 5, the sim-
ulation results show that the reputation values
of both level-1 attackers and level-2 attackers
decrease with time in our blockchain-enabled
system. Meanwhile, the reputation values of
attackers sometimes increase in the centralized (b)
data because of successful deliberate tamper-
FIGURE 5. Reputation comparison of attackers under
ing. In contrast, since our blockchain-enabled
different systems: a) reputation comparison of
system selects trustworthy workers based on
level-1 under different systems; b) reputation
reputation value in smart contract, it can eff ec-
comparison of level-2 under different systems.
tively avoid tampering with reputation value.
Both requesters and workers can participate in
the process of mining a new block. Due to the gers, which may lead to privacy issues. Although
nature of blockchain, it is impossible for attack- the introduction of private blockchain can per-
ers to have adequate resources and power to form privacy protection to some extent, it lim-
manipulate the blockchain platform in the sys- its the access and acquisition of data needed for
tem. Therefore, most of the miners are honest, AI processing, from which the acquired data can
and every update of the worker’s reputation perform accurate and real-time analysis. There-
value is safe. fore, it is still an open issue to balance the utility
and privacy of data in blockchain.
Future reseArcH dIrectIons Data Access and Usage Rule. Since data
In this section, we discuss some open research access and usage rules have gradually become
issues for blockchain and AI in 6G wireless net- an important method to obtain profits, it is imper-
works. ative to manage limitation of data. Creating a
Security of Smart Contract. Since blockchain system that can change the way data is collect-
adopts a decentralized consensus mechanism, its ed, prioritized, and shared helps to maximize the
security is relatively high. However, when block- value of data. However, it may cause serious pri-
chain is applied to a network, the security risk vacy or ethical issues in data usage because dif-
of a smart contract may face a serious challenge ferent users acquire data for different purposes.
due to attacks from every network protocol layer. Therefore, it is also a major challenge to deal with
Because the smart contract is a Turing complete data access and usage rules in highly intelligent
program, its behavior is extremely complex. When systems in order to utilize data to provide more
the code runs in the distributed network environ- services in the 6G era.
ment, the potential risk may be greatly increased.
Therefore, how to explore a more secure mecha- conclusIons
nism into the blockchain has become an urgent In this article, we have explored the AI application
problem to be solved. and blockchain technology in 6G wireless net-
Blockchain Privacy. The public blockchain works. We have first introduced the architecture
supports secure and reliable data transaction. of 6G, which is a space-air-ground-underwater
However, the stored data is public and available integrated four-tier network. Then we have inves-
to all visitors, which inevitably exposes the privacy tigated two AI applications, indoor positioning
of data owners through data mining. For example, and autonomous vehicle. Furthermore, we have
the ubiquitous sensor systems in IoT collect large thoroughly elaborated the increasing attention
amounts of personal data and put it on public led- on data security in AI applications through a case

36 IEEE Network • November/December 2020

Authorized licensed use limited to: Government of Egypt - SPCESR - (EKB). Downloaded on March 17,2024 at 17:44:27 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
SU_LAYOUT.indd 36 11/19/20 3:13 PM
 study. Simulation results illustrate that data stored
on blockchain has strong resistance against tam-
pering. In addition, we have pointed out several
potential research directions. We hope our article
can contribute to the development of blockchain
and AI technology in future 6G networks, and
inspire more people to study the application and
security of 6G networks.
Acknowledgments
This work is supported in part by NSFC (nos.
U1808207 and 91746114), the 111 Proj-
ect, no. D18003, JSPS KAKENHI Grant Num-
ber JP19H04105, and the Project of Shanghai
Municipal Science and Technology Commission,
18510761000.
References
[1] K. Zhang et al., “Edge Intelligence and Blockchain Empow-
ered 5G Beyond for the Industrial Internet of Things,“ IEEE
Network, vol. 33, no. 5, Sept./Oct. 2019, pp. 12–19.
[2] K. Letaief et al., “The Roadmap to 6G: AI Empowered Wire-
less Networks,“ IEEE Commun. Mag., vol. 57, no. 8, Aug.
2019, pp. 84–90.
[3] D. He et al., “The Design and Applications of High-Perfor-
mance Ray-Tracing Simulation Platform for 5G and Beyond
Wireless Communications: A Tutorial,“ IEEE Commun. Sur-
veys & Tutorials, vol. 21, no. 1, 2019, pp. 10–27.
[4] K. Zhang et al., “Artificial Intelligence Inspired Transmission
Scheduling in Cognitive Vehicular Communications and
Networks,“ IEEE Internet of Things J., vol. 6, no. 2, 2019, pp.
1987–97.
[5] K. Zhang et al., “Security and Privacy in Smart City Applica-
tions: Challenges and Solutions,“ IEEE Commun. Mag., vol.
55, no. 1, Jan. 2017, pp. 122–29.
[6] N. Kato et al., “Optimizing Space-Air-Ground Integrated Net-
works by Artificial Intelligence,“ IEEE Wireless Commun., vol.
26, no. 4, Aug. 2019, pp. 140–47.
[7] W. Li et al., “Abnormal Crowd Traffic Detection for Crowd-
sourced Indoor Positioning in Heterogeneous Commu-
nications Networks,“ IEEE Trans. Network Science and
Engineering (in press).
[8] J. Gubbi et al., “Internet of Things (IoT): A Vision, Architec-
tural Elements, and Future Directions,“ Future Gen. Comp.
Sys., vol. 29, no. 7, 2013, pp. 1645–60.
[9] Y. Liu et al., “LightChain: A Lightweight Blockchain System
for Industrial Internet of Things,“ IEEE Trans. Industrial Infor-
matics, vol. 15, no. 6, 2019, pp. 3571–81.
[10] Y. Dai et al., “Blockchain and Deep Reinforcement Learn-
ing Empowered Intelligent 5G Beyond,“ IEEE Network, vol.
33, no. 3, May/June 2019, pp. 10–17.
[11] Z. Zhang et al., “6G Wireless Networks: Vision, Require-
ments, Architecture, and Key Technologies,“ IEEE Vehic.
Tech. Mag., vol. 14, no. 3, 2019, pp. 28–41.
[12] C. Xu, K. Wang, and M. Guo, “Intelligent Resource Man-
agement in Blockchain Based Cloud Data Centers,“ IEEE
Cloud Computing, vol. 4, no. 6, 2017, pp. 50–59.
[13] Z. Su et al., “LVBS: Lightweight Vehicular Blockchain
for Secure Data Sharing in Disaster Rescue,“ IEEE Trans.
Dependable and Secure Computing. DOI: 10.1109/
TDSC.2020.2980255.
[14] K. Zhang et al., “Deep Learning Empowered Task Offload-
ing for Mobile Edge Computing in Urban Informatics,“ IEEE
Internet of Things J., vol. 6, no. 5, 2019, pp. 7635–47.
[15] W. Li et al., “Anomalous Path Detection for Spatial Crowd-
sourcing-Based Indoor Navigation System,“ Proc. IEEE GLO-
BECOM, 2018, pp. 1–7.
IEEE Network • November/December 2020
Authorized licensed use limited to: Government of Egypt - SPCESR - (EKB). Downloaded on March 17,2024 at 17:44:27 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
SU_LAYOUT.indd 37
Simulation results illustrate that data stored on blockchain has strong resistance against tampering.
In addition, we have pointed out several potential research directions. We hope our article can
contribute to the development of blockchain and AI technology in future 6G networks, and inspire
more people to study the application and security of 6G networks.
Biographies
Weiwei Li is working on her Ph.D. degree with the School of
Mechatronic Engineering and Automation of Shanghai Universi-
ty, P. R. China. Her research interests are in the general area of
cyber security and wireless network architecture.
Zhou Su received his Ph.D. degree from Waseda University,
Tokyo, Japan, in 2003. He is an Associate Editor of the IEEE
Internet of Things Journal and the IEEE Open Journal of the Com-
puter Society. He is the Chair of the Multimedia Services and
Applications over Emerging Networks Interest Group (MENIG)
of the IEEE Communications Society as well as the Multimedia
Communications Technical Committee. He has also served as
the Co-Chair of several international conferences including IEEE
VTC Spring 2016, IEEE CCNC 2011, and others. He is a TPC
member of some flagship conferences including IEEE INFO-
COM, IEEE ICC, IEEE GLOBECOM, and others. His research
interests include multimedia communication, wireless communi-
cation, and network traffic. He received the best paper award of
IEEE ICC 2020, IEEE BigdataSE 2019, and others.
Ruidong Li received his Bachelor's degree in engineering from
Zhejiang University, China, in 2001, and his Doctor of Engi-
neering degree from the University of Tsukuba in 2008. He is
a senior researcher with the National Institute of Information
and Communications Technology. His current research interests
include future networks, big data networking, blockchain, the
Internet of Things, network security, and wireless networks. He
is the Secretary of the IEEE ComSoc Internet Technical Com-
mittee and the founder and Chair of the IEEE SIG on Big Data
Intelligent Networking and the IEEE SIG on Intelligent Internet
Edge. He serves as the Co-Chair for Young Professionals of
the IEEE Tokyo Section and the Young Researcher Group in
the Asia Future Internet Forum. He has been a Guest Editor
for prestigious journals, such as IEEE Communications Maga-
zine, IEEE Network, and IEEE Transactions on Network Science
and Engineering, and has served/serves as Chair for internation-
al conferences and workshops, such as BRAINS 2020, INFO-
COM ICCN Workshop 2019/2020, ICDCS NMIC Workshop
2019/2020, GLOBECOM ICSTO Workshop, and ICCSSE 2019.
He is a member of IEICE.
Kuan Zhang has been an assistant professor in the Department
of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Nebras-
ka-Lincoln since September 2017. He received his B.Sc. degree
in communication engineering and his M.Sc. degree in com-
puter applied technology from Northeastern University, China,
in 2009 and 2011, respectively. He received his Ph.D. degree
in electrical and computer engineering from the University of
Waterloo, Canada, in 2016. He was also a postdoctoral fellow
with the Broadband Communications Research (BBCR) group,
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University
of Waterloo, Canada, from 2016 to 2017. His research inter-
ests include security and privacy for mobile social networks,
e-healthcare systems, cloud/edge computing, and cyber physi-
cal systems.
Y untao W ang is working on his Ph.D degree in the School
of Cyber Science and Engineering at Xi'an Jiaotong University,
Xi'an, P. R. China. His research interests include security and
privacy in wireless network architecture and vehicular networks.
37
11/19/20 3:13 PM