Embodiments of the present disclosure provide a data transmission method, a network device, and a terminal. The data transmission method includes: receiving, by a network device, a first reference signal and a first physical channel that are sent by a first terminal device, where the first reference signal is at the ith symbol in a slot, i is a positive integer less than 7, the first physical channel occupies n symbols in the slot, and n is 1, 2, or 3; and demodulating, by the network device, the first physical channel according to the first reference signal. According to the present disclosure, a data transmission latency can be reduced.