Prospects for Telecom in 'Next Tech Revolution' Assessed in Barcelona

AI could contribute more than $15 trillion to the global economy by 2030, according to estimates, but that success depends on agreements that “harness” it, John Giusti, GSMA chief regulatory officer, said Wednesday at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. AI is just one of several technologies that will transform telecom, other speakers said.

We are "living through the next technological revolution and the possibilities are limitless,” Giusti said: “AI has emerged as a force with the potential to transform business and societies on an unprecedented scale.”

Success with AI depends on “active collaboration” among regulators, policymakers and the private sector “to build a trusted environment,” Giusti said. AI must operate “reliably, responsibly and fairly” and leave “no one behind.”

GSMA Intelligence said in a Wednesday report that 56% of wireless operators are testing AI. Driving this are apps, including generative AI-enabled chatbots for customer service, and AI-generated video and music content, GSMA said. The group projects a fourfold rise in mobile data traffic by 2030.

Quantum computing will change telecom and every other industry, said Ilana Wisby, CEO of Oxford Quantum Circuits. Carriers can use it to predict maintenance needs and traffic demand, she said. Telcos can save time and money by more fully understanding the data flowing through their networks, she said.

There are also “huge” security implications, Wisby added. “Not only will there be post-quantum cryptography, being able to securely encrypt data in a post-quantum world utilizing quantum computation, but also ... proactive [applications, such as] … being able to analyze real-time data in ways" that are "fundamentally intractable today,” she said (see 2402200064).

Quantum technology isn’t years away, “it’s very much a reality already today,” Wisby said: “These quantum systems exist. I build them. … We have customers across governments we can’t talk about.” Her company has pharmaceutical, financial, energy and telecom industry clients, she said. Quantum is about five years behind AI in its development but raises many of the same policy questions, she said.

The world is entering an era of exponential technologies, with a few expected to double in size over short time periods, as costs fall sharply, said Zina Cinker, chief creator of tech forum Puzzle X.

A few technologies have “reached a certain point of maturity,” she said, including quantum computing, genomics, frontier materials, AI and machine learning, and nanoassembly, which uses unique materials synthesized from inorganic, polymeric or biological building blocks.

Not only will the technologies accelerate each other’s growth, but “they’re right now merging into each other” and “creating hybrid areas of development that we could not predict before,” Cinker said. “The linear models of prediction of where an industry is going … no longer will work,” she said. “We need exponential models” that look at industries together, as they’re accelerated by technology, she said.

5G connections are expected to represent 51% of mobile connections by 2029, rising to 56% by the end of the decade, making 5G “the dominant connectivity technology,” GSMA said in its Wednesday report. 5G remains the fastest mobile generation rollout to date, GSMA said.

As of January, 261 providers in 101 countries had launched commercial 5G and more than 90 operators in 64 markets have committed to rollouts, GSMA said. Operators have launched 47 5G standalone (SA) networks, with another 89 in the works, “that will take advantage of network slicing, ultra-reliable low-latency communications support and the simplified 5G SA network architecture,” GSMA said.