Large language models (LLMs) and foundation models have been recently touted as a game-changer for 6G systems. However, recent efforts on LLMs for wireless networks are limited to a direct application of existing language models that were designed for natural language processing (NLP) applications. To address this challenge and create wireless-centric foundation models, this paper presents a comprehensive vision on how to design universal foundation models that are tailored towards the deployment of artificial intelligence (AI)-native networks. Diverging from NLP-based foundation models, the proposed framework promotes the design of large multi-modal models (LMMs) fostered by three key capabilities: 1) processing of multi-modal sensing data, 2) grounding of physical symbol representations in real-world wireless systems using causal reasoning and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), and 3) enabling instructibility from the wireless environment feedback to facilitate dynamic network adaptation thanks to logical and mathematical reasoning facilitated by neuro-symbolic AI. In essence, these properties enable the proposed LMM framework to build universal capabilities that cater to various cross-layer networking tasks and alignment of intents across different domains. Preliminary results from experimental evaluation demonstrate the efficacy of grounding using RAG in LMMs, and showcase the alignment of LMMs with wireless system designs. Furthermore, the enhanced rationale exhibited in the responses to mathematical questions by LMMs, compared to vanilla LLMs, demonstrates the logical and mathematical reasoning capabilities inherent in LMMs. Building on those results, we present a sequel of open questions and challenges for LMMs. We then conclude with a set of recommendations that ignite the path towards LMM-empowered AI-native systems.
VoCoT: Unleashing Visually Grounded Multi-Step Reasoning in Large Multi-Modal Models
School of Data Science, Fudan University(复旦大学数据科学学院);ByteDance(字节跳动);School of Computer Science, Fudan University(复旦大学计算机科学学院);Research Institute of Intelligent and Complex Systems, Fudan University(复旦大学智能与复杂系统研究院);Shanghai Innovation Institute(上海创新研究院)
TAMO: Fine-Grained Root Cause Analysis via Tool-Assisted LLM Agent with Multi-Modality Observation Data in Cloud-Native Systems
School of Computer Science and Technology, Shandong University(山东大学计算机科学与技术学院);Institute of Artificial Intelligence, Beihang University(北京航空航天大学人工智能研究院)
BioMatrix: Towards a Comprehensive Biological Foundation Model Spanning the Modality Matrix of Sequences, Structures, and Language
Gaoling School of Artificial Intelligence, Renmin University of China(中国人民大学高瓴人工智能学院);OpenDataLab, Shanghai Artificial Intelligence Laboratory(上海人工智能实验室 OpenDataLab);Zhejiang University(浙江大学);Shanghai Innovation Institute(上海创新研究院);East China Normal University(华东师范大学);Zhongguancun Academy(中关村学院);School of Artificial Intelligence, Wuhan University(武汉大学人工智能学院)
Stream-Omni: Simultaneous Multimodal Interactions with Large Language-Vision-Speech Model
Key Laboratory of Intelligent Information Processing, Institute of Computing Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (ICT/CAS)(中国科学院智能信息处理重点实验室);Key Laboratory of AI Safety, Chinese Academy of Sciences(中国科学院人工智能安全重点实验室);University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China(中国科学院大学)
UpstreamQA: A Modular Framework for Explicit Reasoning on Video Question Answering Tasks
Lincoln North Star High School(林肯北星高中);The Charter School of Wilmington(威尔明顿 charter 学校);Greenwich High School(格林威治高中);Santa Susana High School(圣塔苏娜高中);UC Berkeley(伯克利大学)
Mind the Gap No More: Achieving Zero-Gap Multimodal Integration via One Tokenizer
Research Center for Frontier Fundamental Studies, Zhejiang Lab(前沿基础研究研究中心,浙江实验室);Research Center for Scientific Data Hub, Zhejiang Lab(科学数据枢纽研究中心,浙江实验室)
Beyond Text-Dominance: Understanding Modality Preference of Omni-modal Large Language Models
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences(中国科学院大学);Chinese Information Processing Laboratory(中文信息处理实验室);Institute of Software, Chinese Academy of Sciences(中国科学院软件研究所)
AMix-2: Establishing Protein as a Native Modality in Large Language Models
Shanghai Artificial Intelligence Laboratory(上海人工智能实验室);Generative Symbolic Intelligence Lab (GenSI), Tsinghua University(生成符号智能实验室(GenSI),清华大学);Institute for AI Industry Research (AIR), Tsinghua University(人工智能产业研究院(AIR),清华大学)
Multi-modal Auto-regressive Modeling via Visual Words
School of Computer Science, Wuhan University(武汉大学计算机学院);Shanghai Jiao Tong University(上海交通大学);School of Information Management, Wuhan University(武汉大学信息管理学院)
LogicOCR: Do Your Large Multimodal Models Excel at Logical Reasoning on Text-Rich Images?
School of Computer Science, National Engineering Research Center for Multimedia Software, Institute of Artificial Intelligence, and Hubei Key Laboratory of Multimedia and Network Communication Engineering, Wuhan University(计算机学院、多媒体软件国家工程研究中心、人工智能研究院、多媒体与网络通信工程湖北省重点实验室、武汉大学)
LLaVA-Mini: Efficient Image and Video Large Multimodal Models with One Vision Token
Institute of Computing Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences(中国科学院计算技术研究所);Chinese Academy of Sciences(中国科学院);University of Chinese Academy of Sciences(中国科学院大学)
UniPixel: Unified Object Referring and Segmentation for Pixel-Level Visual Reasoning
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University(香港理工大学);ARC Lab, Tencent PCG(腾讯PCG ARC实验室);Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences(中国科学院自动化研究所);vivo Mobile Communication Co.(vivo移动通信公司);MindWingman Technology (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd.(深圳MindWingman技术有限公司)
SonarLLM: A Native Sonar--Optical Multimodal Large Language Model for Underwater Perception
Faculty of Information Engineering and Automation, Kunming University of Science and Technology(昆明理工大学信息工程与自动化学院);Yunnan Key Laboratory of Artificial Intelligence(云南省人工智能重点实验室)
OmniGenBench: A Benchmark for Omnipotent Multimodal Generation across 50+ Tasks
Shanghai Key Lab of Intell. Info. Processing, Fudan University(上海智能信息处理关键实验室,复旦大学);Shanghai Collaborative Innovation Center of Intelligent Visual Computing(上海智能视觉计算协同创新中心);School of Computer Science and Technology, East China Normal University(东华大学计算机科学与技术学院)
Sensing and Understanding the World over Air: A Large Multimodal Model for Mobile Networks
National Engineering Research Center for Mobile Network Technologies, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications (BUPT), Beijing(中国移动网络技术国家工程研究中心,北京邮电大学);Beiyou Shenzhen Institute(北邮深圳研究所);School of Cyber Security, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS)(中国科学院大学网络安全学院);China Telecom Co., Ltd.(中国电信股份有限公司);Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD)(新加坡科技设计大学)