The race to develop 6G mobile infrastructure — designed from the ground up as an AI-driven, intelligent network rather than a simple data pipeline — is deepening geopolitical fault lines, with the UK and Europe squeezed between Chinese industrial dominance and growing reliance on US technology giants. In late July, the United States announced a 24-country 6G coalition, including the UK and 15 other European nations, aimed at countering China's influence after Beijing gained a significant lead in 5G hardware and patents due to poorly coordinated Western industrial policy. Europe's flagship initiative, Hexa-X-II, backed by Nokia and Ericsson, seeks technological independence from both powers, but analysts warn that neither the EU nor the UK currently possesses the industrial scale to fully replace Chinese infrastructure or avoid deepening dependence on American cloud platforms such as Amazon and Google. A critical juncture will come at the International Telecommunication Union's World Radiocommunication Conference in October 2027, held in Shanghai, where governments will negotiate spectrum allocation, with the first technical standards expected by 2028 and commercial 6G networks targeted for around 2030.