Towards extreme network KPIs with programmability in 6G

6G's superpower must be simplicity, which should not be viewed as a constraint, but rather as the organic outcome of using the most advanced technologies at our disposal. Programmability in the data plane, cloud-native features like automatic scaling and failover, transparent acceleration of both network functions and applications and AI-driven optimizations are already present. We only need to integrate these different innovations into a consistent architecture and offer a simple yet powerful solution for the very different applications that would use future mobile networks. The application space is getting more and more heterogeneous, e.g., legacy Internet-based services still using the good old TCP protocol, future media services relying on multipath transport always utilizing the best available connection, or control applications of robots or drones requiring extreme low and stable latency. The different applications will require very different Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) from the network. In this paper, we present a novel architecture called DESIRE6G (D6G) architecture that aims to fulfill these requirements by integrating the key technological innovations mentioned above. Besides supporting the diverse KPIs of future applications, the novel architecture should also simplify the mobile network itself by promoting modularity and service-based network function selection which can replace traditional control plane centric solutions, e.g., for handover.