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Prepare for the future
From global equipment providers to local regulators, the groundwork for the 5G future is being laid. We must all begin preparing, writes ARTHUR GOLDSTUCK.
“We’ve seen a rapid acceleration in our server business, and when we dig into what’s happening, AI is the big use case. What we don’t find is horizontal AI. AI gets very vertical very quickly, meaning that it is entering every industry.
“To be competitive in the future, you have to use AI and data and do it at record speed and at scale. It all starts with a company’s data, and the data helps make a product or service better. This allows a company to attract more customers, which creates more data, and the cycle repeats itself.”
All of this does not even take into account the massive changes that will become possible when mobile network operators start rolling out 5G networks alongside the existing 2G, 3G and 4G infrastructure. While the legacy networks are heavily voice-focused, 5G will be a data play.
But this will be data on steroids, as capacity and speeds reach levels that make entirely new categories of technology product and even of business model possible. Ironically, while 5G was the word on almost every vendor’s lips at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February, very little equipment is yet available that complies with the formal standard.
That is about to change, and we can expect 5G-ready, 5G-compatible and 5G-compliant to become new buzzwords as manufacturers scramble to join the bandwagon.
This, in turn, will see new capabilities in products ranging from virtual reality and smartphones to connected cars and smart assistants. These will not be incremental changes, but will represent a radical shift in the way technology is used. That, in turn, means a shift in the way technology is bought.
As a result, anyone in the business of selling technology will soon have to learn not only new skills, but almost entirely new product languages.
