'Keyboard will now become AI keyboard, pen an AI pen'

Qualcomm Technologies is successfully transitioning from a communications-based to a connected-computing firm, said Alex Katouzian, senior vice-president and general manager of the US company's mobile, personal computing, voice, music, wearables, and extended reality (XR) business units.

- Leslie DMonte

In an interview last week, when visiting the company's India offices where Qualcomm has around 17,000 engineers, Katouzian shared his thoughts on the 5G ecosystem, artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled personal computers (PCs), generative AI (GenAI) smartphones, XR devices, and the company's overall smart device strategy in India. Edited excerpts:

Has the 5G ecosystem matured sufficiently for users and enterprises?

The G transitions traditionally are about 10 years apart. We (Qualcomm) tried to push the market and the technology to speed up the G(s). We launched 5G towards the end of 2019.

A year later, it started to take off with data cards, following which phones helped it pick up momentum. Later, what helped was the embedded 5G capability in multiple devices and networks around the world-both private and public cellular networks; the movement m towards VRAN (virtualized radio access network); and competition between multiple vendors to provide the best solution. While 4G is still in existence, the numbers are larger than the 3G volumes. But if you have IoT (internet of things) devices at home or in the field, you would not want a generation minus one (older) technology if you're making sure it's going to last for 10 years. We have a roadmap to help transition 4G into 5G with even more aggressive type of capabilities. I anticipate 6G to start rolling out somewhere towards 2029.

How are 5G networks and devices now leveraging AI, GenAI and XR?