Next-generation MIMO empowered mobile edge computing. A comprehensive survey toward 6G systems

The integration of Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) with Next-Generation Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (NG-MIMO) technologies has emerged as a cornerstone of next-generation wireless networks, enabling low-latency, high-bandwidth, and computationally efficient applications.This survey offers a comprehensive, structured analysis of recent advancements, key applications, and pressing challenges at the MEC–NG-MIMO interface. We emphasize performance optimization—resource allocation, spectral and energy efficiency, latency, fairness, and scalability in MEC-aided NG-MIMO systems, and examine a spectrum of architectures including massive MIMO (mMIMO), cell-free mMIMO (CF-mMIMO)/user-centric CF-mMIMO, extremely large-scale MIMO (XL-MIMO), holographic MIMO (H-MIMO), and movable antennas (MA). Beyond fundamentals, we introduce architectural patterns (centralized, distributed, and hybrid) to clarify orchestration and control/data-plane design, and deepen the discussion of RIS-aided systems (phase optimization, CSI overhead) and XL-MIMO (near-field propagation, visibility regions). We further review the convergence with emerging technologies including UAVs, RIS, NOMA, SWIPT, energy harvesting, and AI/ML-driven optimization, highlighting joint communication-computation strategies that enhance coverage, efficiency, and robustness. Practical relevance is reinforced through empirical deployment insights and KPI–use-case mappings, including references to key standards and environmental/implementation constraints (synchronization, hardware impairments, power/cooling/backhaul). Finally, we identify open problems and research directions that are critical to realizing intelligent, adaptive, and energy-efficient MEC-aided NG-MIMO networks on the path to 6G.