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.

Continue reading

Lee: Is Nvidia Grace a sign of doubt?

Nvidia’s entry into the data center CPU game has been widely celebrated as a landmark move that poses an existential threat to Intel’s dominance in the data center. Accordingly, Nvidia’s stock jumped 5.62 percent upon the announcement while Intel’s dropped 4.18 percent. However, the advent of Project Grace feels like something else. It could suggest that Nvidia sees the writing on the wall and needs a hedge in the event that Nvidia’s $40 billion acquisition of Arm falls through.

Continue reading

Industry Insight: Nvidia + Arm – An Industry Positive or Negative?

Shortly after Softbank announced that it was looking to spinoff or sell Arm, which they acquired in 2016 for $32 billion, the rumor mill went into full speed. Speculation ran the gamut from Intel to Apple as potential buyers. Who would court Arm? Rumors settled on Nvidia, the GPU company. Would a Nvidia + Arm union make sense? After all, Nvidia has done well and created a disruptive narrative within the semiconductor industry with its GPU-centered plot line which branches off into numerous subplots in telco networking, edge computing and various AI application domains such as autonomous vehicles, intelligent systems and smart manufacturing.

Continue reading

Industry Insight: Qualcomm/Huawei Settlement

An unexpected but pleasant surprise was announced at Qualcomm’s recent earnings call. Huawei had settled its $1.8 billion dispute with Qualcomm regarding the licensing of essential technologies. It represents another important win for Qualcomm in its long and hard fought battle with OEMs including Apple to preserve the integrity and vitality of its technology business. It can be considered a win for innovation. But what does the settlement mean in the grand scheme of things and the rising tensions between the US government and Huawei?

Continue reading