The high speed and low latency of 5G will be enable more appliances that are used every day to deliver the capabilities people now expect from smartphones — they’ll be connected, customizable and always up to date.
Products being displayed or announced this week at CES by Qualcomm illustrate the capabilities enabled by 5G. Among them are PCs, the metaverse, wireless fiber and connected cars.
“We see this opportunity of billions of smart devices — just not connected devices, smart connected devices that are connected to the cloud 100% of the time and significantly impacting industries,” Qualcomm President and CEO Cristiano Amon said during a Tuesday (Jan. 4) press conference at CES. “That’s how we look of this very broad opportunity that we call ‘the connected intelligent edge,’ which is really driving a lot of growth for Qualcomm and driving a lot of innovation based on our technology roadmap.”
High-Speed Access to Data, From Anywhere
In PCs, Qualcomm announced its Arm-based Snapdragon compute platforms are being used by Acer, ASUS, HP, Lenovo and Microsoft. It also announced that 200 enterprises are either testing or deploying Windows on devices with Snapdragon. These devices, the company said, are driving the convergence of PC and mobile.
Amon said these platforms and 5G deliver productivity and the ability to work anywhere, because they have high computation capabilities for on-device intelligence, camera and multimedia, and on-demand computing with 5G.
“Also, more and more, I’m sure all of you here today will agree with that, the data is moving to the cloud,” Amon said. “So, the ability to access your data in a high speed, no matter where you are, becomes extremely important, too.”
Lightweight Wearable Augmented Reality Devices
In augmented reality, virtual reality and the metaverse, Qualcomm announced an expansion of its collaboration with Microsoft to accelerate augmented reality and virtual reality. With software from both companies, and a custom augmented reality Snapdragon chip, they are developing next-generation, lightweight AR glasses.
“We’ve been talking for years about the possibility of having wearable augmented reality devices that will gain scale,” Amon said. “I’m very excited about this partnership. It’s a step in making that a reality and gaining more and more scale with augmented reality.”
Global Access to Broadband
In wireless fiber, Qualcomm announced a partnership with AT&T for delivering wireless broadband access to both homes and enterprises. With 5G-enabled fixed wireless access, high-speed broadband can be delivered to locations that would be too expensive to reach with fiber.
For indoor facilities, campuses, offices and homes, Amon said, the high speed and low latency of 5G provides the ability to have all devices connected at very high speed, to do on-demand computing, to have all the data on the cloud, and to stream for collaboration. It also improves video, gaming and uplinks.
“5G, including millimeter wave, is a universal last-mile technology,” Amon said. “It is not only the technology that is going to connect our phone, is going to connect our PCs, is going to connect our augmented reality glasses, is going to connect our mobile gaming devices, is going to connect our smart IoT devices, but it is also a technology that is going to have a major role in the last mile.”
Cloud-Connected Capabilities for Cars
In automotive, Qualcomm is providing several options of digital chassis that enable digital, cloud-connected capabilities for cars. These digital chassis are upgradeable, customizable and integrated, so automakers don’t have to piece together different components. They provide vehicles with connectivity, infotainment, safety and over-the-air updates.
At CES, Qualcomm announced that BMW, General Motors, Honda and Volvo are among the first automakers to deploy these platforms.
“Car companies are becoming, and they are now, many of them are now, tech companies,” Amon said. “Technology assets have become extremely important.”
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