  Technology forecasts anticipate a new era in which massive numbers of humans,
machines, and things are connected to wireless networks to sense, process, act,
and communicate with the surrounding environment in a real-time manner. To make
the visions come true, the sixth generation (6G) wireless networks should be
hyper-connected, implying that there are no constraints on the data rate,
coverage, and computing. In this article, we first identify the main challenges
for 6G hyper-connectivity, including terabits-per-second (Tbps) data rates for
immersive user experiences, zero coverage-hole networks, and pervasive
computing for connected intelligence. To overcome these challenges, we
highlight key enabling technologies for 6G such as distributed and
intelligence-aware cell-free massive multi-input multioutput (MIMO) networks,
boundless and fully integrated terrestrial and non-terrestrial networks, and
communication-aware distributed computing for computation-intensive
applications. We further illustrate and discuss the hyper-connected 6G network
architecture along with open issues and future research directions.
