As if like a Hollywood prophesised future, could the future see a Dystopian or an Utopian world as artificial intelligent, self aware machines become for a reality than fictional?
The definition of mobility is changing and broadening every day. Today’s mobile world was built for smartphones with voice and data in mind. In tomorrow’s world, nothing is mobile because everything is mobile. It will be a world built for connected cars, connected factories and connected drones, to name a few examples. The machines are coming and we are moving into the next era of wireless technology which will bring new connections and capabilities to the connected world. That next era is 5G…
Intel, is working on the next evolutionary, and recognizes that 5G is more than an evolutionary step forward, it encompasses technologies and a much wider ecosystem than has ever been seen in the wireless and telecommunications industries. That it’s an inflection point, a place in time where we will see and experience everything being smart and connected. But in order for billions of people and machines to be connected, a need for smarter, faster and more efficient networks is required. The ability to connect to each other, to machines and the cloud, and derive actionable insights from massive amount of data, will bring new experiences and transform businesses.
The chip maker want to focus on three key areas to enable this: an industry partnership, end-to-end 5G-related hardware and software development, and supporting 5G standards-setting. Pushing hard to create end-to-end solutions from the device to the network to the cloud, accelerating prototype solutions through efforts like 5G mobile trial platform and working with standards-setting bodies such as 3GPP and IEEE on defining the 5G standard are initiatives being made to ensure a smooth path and entry to a faster and smarter pace of connectivity.
Connectivity binds together the cloud, the Internet of Things (IoT), all our devices, memory and FPGAs — all creating a virtuous cycle of growth that Brian Krzanich outlined a few weeks ago. Enabling smart, fast, efficient, and powerful connectivity to the expected 50 billion connected “things” will make our homes, our cities and our world smarter and our lives richer. 5G has the potential to deliver data hundreds of times faster than current wireless technology. But such potential can only be achieved when computing and communications converge, and this is where our industry must align adds Brian.
Current and next wave connectivity technologies — LTE, millimeter wave, 5G modems, Wi-Fi, WiGig, Bluetooth, Ethernet — are essential for end-to-end pervasive connectivity across extremely diverse device and application needs, from multi-gigabit per second speeds to ultra-low latency.
One of the first steps is to start connecting the unconnected machines and “things. Aicha Evans Corporate VP and GM for Communications and Device ” This is an area I am incredibly passionate about, and I am excited about the connectivity solutions that Intel is delivering to ensure that a true IoT world becomes reality. Our customers are partnering closely with us on this, validating their modules that utilize our modems on carrier networks around the world. At Mobile World Congress, Intel and AT&T announced a collaboration to test airborne LTE use cases for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), also known as drones, and Intel also showed demonstrations of technologies such as Mobile Edge Computing, millimeter wave and NarrowBand IOT (NB-IOT). These are all important steps to bring connectivity to a variety of new IoT devices globally.
By the same token, modems, devices and networks needs to be redesigned to ensure that everything and anything that can compute and connect to the network actually will. Think about it this way — every device that connects to the network redefines connectivity and establishes a new point of convergence. With this in mind, a redefinition to the meaning of network. Every device becomes a node by default.
Such connectivity requires immediate analytics and response as well. Many people believe devices are simply dumb data sources, and that all analytics occur in the cloud. That’s not true. The fact is computing and analytics happen not only in the clouds, but also in the network and on devices. Computing does not happen in a vacuum, it is ubiquitous like connectivity.
To deliver 5G connectivity and intelligence industry partnerships are more critical than ever. No one company can move this technology forward alone. Which means collaborating with industry leaders from device and equipment manufacturers to network operators and service providers. It also means laying down a strong foundation for 5G, in areas like Network Function Virtualization (NFV) and NB-IOT.
Intel showcased working demonstrations of NB-IOT technology with Ericsson and Nokia at Mobile World Congress; Intel, Orange and Ericsson conducted one of the world’s first extended coverage trials for IoT using EC-GSM-IoT; and during Computex, Intel announced a collaboration with Foxconn on the development of network infrastructure technologies, to help transform communications networks and lay the foundation for 5G.
And in a parting statement Intel is ready to help lead the industry through this inflection point and let the machines finally come to life!
