Cesar CantuWhat is Qualcomm planning for the next couple years?
San Diego-based Qualcomm is known mostly for its hardware. From microchips to wireless equipment, the company has carved a name for itself as a provider for some of the biggest names in the telecom, manufacturing and logistics sectors.
Lately, though, the company has moved towards what its executives have characterized as a more services-oriented business model, in which hardware is but a single component of a whole solution. We spoke with Silmar Palmeira, Qualcomm’s Senior Products Director in Latin America, to get a more accurate picture of what the company envisions for its deeper incursion into the services sector.
In the following conversation, Silmar also provides insight into Qualcomm’s latest experiences with AI and the tech labor market, as well as his opinion on Latin America’s progress (or lack thereof) in regards to telecommunications and digital infrastructure.
NSAM: Luiz Toninsi, President of Qualcomm LATAM, mentioned in an interview with another media outlet that Quacomm would be leveraging its Aware platform to provide what he termed “data services”. What did he mean with that phrasing?
Silmar Palmeira: Qualcomm was founded in 1985 with the objective to build products, not services. In the last three years, Qualcomm decided to diversify its business. To focus not only on developing products, but also to think about developing services.
One of the things that we decided to do is related to IoT. Instead of developing a product which can measure temperature, humidity or pressure, why not try to offer the end-to-end solution?
What do I mean by an end-to-end solution? I have the device, which has to make the measurement. But that measurement has to be sent somewhere, perhaps to another system, to catch this information. Think about a device that is connected to a mobile network. There has to be connectivity through the operator to get that measurement to the cloud, to the Aware platform. That connectivity from the device, right through the network and to the cloud is part of our offering. But then, as soon as the measurement reaches the platform, there has to be a user friendly dashboard. Imagine that the customer already has an IoT platform and does not want to use our Aware platform. That platform can be integrated with Aware via APIs. So, all the information coming through Aware can be sent to the customer’s platform of choice, and all the information will be there. The customer does not have to change their own platform.
We are moving away from selling only the device, but we are also including the connectivity with operators and the Aware platform in the cloud. And we’re also offering that information to the customer through APIs. That could be analytics. Instead of paying for the device, for the connectivity, for the Aware platform, the customer is going to pay for the information received.
We are not talking about selling products any more. We are talking about selling the services, the analytics, the measurements that those components are taking. It’s a completely different approach to what Qualcomm has been doing since its formation.
NSAM: Is Qualcomm already offering these end-to-end solutions?
Silmar Palmeira: We just started what we call proof of concept with some customers in the middle of this year. Early next year we are going to have customers using this solution, the Aware platform, commercially.
NSAM: Several tech and non-tech companies are jumping into software services, digital transformation and tech consulting. Is all of this you tell me about Aware, about data services, a move by Qualcomm to dabble in those markets?
Silmar Palmeira: No. We are simplifying the existing ecosystem. We are not moving into a services model. We are going to bring everything together so customers don’t have to pay for each service separately. It’s going to be an end-to-end solution. You’ll be receiving the information and paying on a monthly basis; that’s it. That’s different from a consulting service based on technology.
It’s just transforming what exists today: the ecosystem of partners and customers and trying to pull everything together and simplify it in a bundle.
NSAM: Qualcomm has been engaging with AI for over 15 years, but the overall business world seems to have noticed the technology fairly recently. What has been the experience for Qualcomm trying to find more AI expertise in the labor market now that it is so in demand?
Silmar Palmeira: Qualcomm is a global company. We have nearly 50,000 employees across the globe: in South Korea, China, Japan, Europe, the US, here in LATAM. We can leverage our expertise across the world. We don’t need to have people in certain places, with certain skills. If we have some guy in Japan with expertise in generative AI, for example, he’s going to be working at a global level.
That gives us a flexibility which smaller companies don’t have. The bad thing is that days grow longer, because of the different time zones. But the benefits which we can leverage, the expertise and knowledge across the globe, that’s a good thing.
NSAM: So Qualcomm isn’t doing that much hiring, at least when it comes to AI experts, because you already have your people?
Silmar Palmeira: Of course. Qualcomm has been working with AI for years, not only in response to the emergence of ChatGPT. AI is one of the basic requirements when you come to work at Qualcomm. Of course, there are different levels of knowledge. AI is one of the three pillars of the company, for its development.
NSAM: Is there a specific region which you would consider “richer” in terms of AI expertise?
Silmar Palmeira: In terms of numbers, there’s Asia. You have Taiwan, you have India, you have Japan, you have South Korea, you have China. But again, it’s spread across the world.
NSAM: What has been the experience of Qualcomm with AI expertise in Latin America?
Silmar Palmeira: We do not develop products here in LATAM. We focus on developing business opportunities. It’s different from what we have in Asia, for instance.
NSAM: What about the adoption of AI internally? Has Qualcomm been adopting AI in new ways for internal use? If so, are you developing these solutions in-house or are you venturing into the market in search of third-party solutions?
Silmar Palmeira: We are not developing anything. We use what’s available in the market.
NSAM: What sort of solutions do you seek for in the market for internal use?
Silmar Palmeira: For instance, we are using Teams. You can have AI with different applications for what’s available in the market. We don’t need to develop anything in-house to experience those benefits.
NSAM: What’s your take on telecom infrastructure in LATAM’s main markets? Is it good? So so?
Silmar Palmeira: There is a lot of room for improvement in terms of telecom infrastructure in Latin America. The interesting thing about now is that, although there’s a lack of fiber connectivity in the region, with 5G’s availability in some countries, we can use it to address some of the needs for fiber.
5G technology is going to help us in LATAM a lot because, in some places, due to a lack of fiber, we’re going to jump directly into 5G using CPEs [customer premises equipment]. We can use wireless technology to overcome the lack of physical infrastructure. You can leapfrog.
I see the glass half-empty and half-full. The lack of infrastructure becomes an opportunity because I have 5G, which can address some of the use cases which in the past could not be done.
NSAM: Wouldn’t you say that 5G deployment has been too slow in LATAM? At least it seems to us that way, from where we stand.
Silmar Palmeira: 5G is not only about having more speed or lower latency in connectivity. The use cases that require 5G, they have to be in place.
Since last year, because of what we call FWA [fixed wireless access] and CPEs, some operators are now understanding that by having different use cases you can explore the capabilities of 5G. It’s not only about smartphones or tablets; it’s about different applications as well.
We both use glasses, for example. We are developing products [glasses] that will have to be connected to the device. Imagine the amount of data to be processed for us to be able to read information here on the lense, in real time. It’s a lot of bandwidth and low latency. That’s going to need 5G.
In industry. Imagine I want to have an autonomous guided car in a factory which moves from one point to another. That’s going to require a lot of data. You cannot have that with 4G. You need to have 5G connectivity.
Companies are starting to understand what can be done with 5G beyond pointing to your smartphone screen and saying “Look, I have a 5G network”. They have to think about other stuff to do. It’s a very powerful technology. The leap from 4G to 5G is huge compared to the previous ones. That’s why there’s a lot of hype.
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