the future of transportation. What do we mean by that? It is not to say that the car is the future of transportation, rather the future of the car will depend on how the broader transportation system digitally evolves. The digital transformation of transportation infrastructure will have profound influence on how and how quickly the digitalization of the car will play out as will the stitching between the intelligent car and the intelligent infrastructure – 5G connectivity.
Category: Research
The US-China Tech War: Technology and Digital Economic Leadership at the Crossroads
ast week, the US Senate passed the USICA (The United States Innovation and Competition Act) which includes the CHIPS for America Act. Despite what the title of the USICA and its sub articles might suggest, the policy is largely a manifesto for dealing with a rising and highly competitive China with particular concern for the Western rival’s ambition to achieve semiconductor self-sufficiency and Huawei’s ascension as the leading 5G technology vendor. The Act presents several concrete policy measures to diminish China’s access to US semiconductor technologies and 52 billion USD in federal funding to build a more resilient semiconductor supply chain. But will these policies help the US achieve what the title of the USICA suggest; improve US semiconductor supply chain resiliency and competitiveness in 5G? Will it stop the technological advancement of China and its digital economy long enough for the West to tame it?
Fostering the 5G Innovation Economy for the European Auto Industry
5G is about vertical industries. It promises to connect things beyond the smartphone in new ways and at a scale that was not possible with previous generations of mobile wireless technology. The auto industry has long been considered one of the frontier industries ripe for 5G reinvention. On May 19th, France Brevets hosted a virtual conference to discuss the importance of incubating a healthy regional innovation economy. The goal? To foster technological leadership in transformative technologies such as 5G to help secure a competitive future for the European auto industry.
Tech Insight: RISC-V – Ready or Not?
The semiconductor industry has never faced a more tumultuous and exciting time than now. Competition, innovations, and geopolitics are forcing tectonic shifts in the industry landscape. These shifts have put a spotlight on RISC-V from multiple vantage points that highlight its emerging importance. While it is still early days, SiFive has been at the forefront of advancing the RISC-V agenda and bringing it to the mainstream. The company’s founders are the founders of the open semiconductor standard. How are they approaching an incredibly dynamic market and fast-changing industry?
Industry Insight: The Impartial Governance of 5G Technology
The spotlight continues to shine more brightly on 5G on the global geopolitical stage as it becomes increasingly apparent to the US and European nations that 5G technological leadership is of strategic economic importance. While the race to deploy 5G networks is a global competition, mobile wireless technologies of today have been a result of cooperation and collaboration across standard setting bodies, operators and technology companies across the globe. 3GPP, the engineering organization that sets the technical specifications that are the basis of mobile wireless technology standards, recently held their election for one of the more prominent of its Technical Specification Groups (TSGs), the RAN TSG. The election happens at time when 5G technology leadership is hotly contested and the merits of technological unity is increasingly challenged geopolitically.
Huawei Analyst Summit 2021
neXt Curve attended Huawei’s Analyst Day (HAS) 2021 which was hosted in-person and virtually from Shenzhen, China. This event shortly followed Huawei’s Annual Report which presented the state of their business during a difficult year for the company as it faced a wide range of sanctions by the US and the global Coronavirus pandemic. HAS 2021 gave us an holistic overview of the progress that Huawei has made in evolving and executing its “survival” strategy over the last two years since the company became the focus of deteriorating relations between the United States and China.
Technology Insight: NEOM
What if technology could not just make cities “smarter” but help us entirely reimagine the idea of a city of the future? NEOM is a visionary giga project that aspires to apply the most advanced in current and emerging technologies to realize a bold urban development concept called THE LINE, the revolutionary infrastructure concept that will bring about the world’s first “cognitive city”.
Huawei Annual Report 2020: A Year of Survival
neXt Curve was in Nice, France attending the premier global event for digital transformation in the telecommunications industry held from May 14th through May 16th and hosted by TM Forum. Leading vendors and operators converged to discuss what it will take help the telecom industry reinvent itself and aid telecom service providers in becoming digital service providers. Now that 5G has arrived in select markets around the globe, the pressure is on for telecom operators to transform their operating models to capture the value promised by the next generation network.
Tech Insight: The Open RAN Movement
Excitement about the open RAN movement continues to rise as operators such as Rakuten proves out OpenRAN and O-RAN principles in their greenfield 5G network which went live last year. How are major network equipment manufacturers adjusting to the new technology landscape? What are the benefits and costs to operators and vendors in adopting open and interoperable technologies?
Industry Insight: A Biden Tech Policy
On January 20th, a new US Administration took office in the midst of a global pandemic, economic crisis and deteriorated Sino-US trade & security relations. During the Trump Administration, the tech industry became the epicenter of the trade war as US and China quickly escalated their exchange of tit-for-tat tariffs and bans. What will change under a Biden Administration if anything?