Silicon Valley Tech Talks

Mobile Networks Innovations for India & Southasia: We had the pleasure of interviewing Randeep Sekhon, the chief technology officer at airtel, on the latest Silicon Valley Tech Talks show. Randeep enlightened us on the mobile network industry landscape and the opportunities available in the India and South Asian markets. Key highlights from our discussion with Randeep are the following: (1) We discussed key strategic priorities for Airtel in the next few years. Airtel has two priorities: (1) Best-in-class experience and (2) cost leadership. Airtel has set these priorities in the context of customer needs and the dynamics of the markets they are serving. (2) Airtel is seeing exciting opportunities with AI. Their company, Nxtra, is already in the AI data center business. Airtel sees AI as a significant leverage to their future strategies. Randeep comprehensively covered AI use cases to reduce Opex and Capex and improve user experiences and employee learning. (3) Randeep elaborated on his personal opinion on the Cellular 6G solution. He emphasized that the industry has yet to capture the full potential of 5G. The telecom industry must first double down to get the maximum out of 5G, where the investments have already gone in. 6G should be seen as the evolution to Industrial and campus use cases and not as ubiquitous G. (4) Randeep believes the trifecta consists of (1) Cloud analytics, (2) Internet-of-Things data accessed by network APIs, and (3) access technologies, which will lead to developing many use cases across entertainment, sports, news, etc, which could be appealing for markets like India. He invited innovators and developers to consider this space for innovation and partner with players like Airtel.  

Why are we more excited now about AI than ever before? At the core of it, what has changed in the last few years that has triggered this excitement and increased the potential for AI utilization? Howie Xu (Chief AI & Innovation Officer at Gen) elaborates on this in this short clip. He explains how AI has become more feasible and real with GenAI. He shared a couple of reasons explaining this further: (1) Pre-trained models work now; in many cases, we do not need to start from scratch to build AI models and use cases. Howie gave the example of how prompt engineering, on top of pre-training foundational models, allows sentiment analysis. (2) GenAI models will also enable multimodality, allowing inputs to be text, audio, or video and output to be any of these. Howie initially considers content retrieval, learning, customer support, and code generation as GenAI's primary use case categories. Still, the GenAI application will expand beyond these use cases to widespread opportunities for impact. Watch full interview of Howie at this link: https://lnkd.in/g7u4vzba

Connectivity-as-a-service: Orange Business has shared its vision of reshaping the future of network-related services and offering customers a cloud-like experience. In this short clip, Usman Javaid, Orange Business's Chief Product and Marketing Officer, elaborates on how the Cloud approach could be deployed to offer connectivity services. The full podcast of Usman is available at this link: https://lnkd.in/ezrNxfvJ

Happy holidays and happy New Year, everyone! If you missed any of the Silicon Valley Tech Talks shows in 2024, we have compiled a single video summarizing key insights from our 2024 podcasts on Technology and Innovations. This video is available on the Silicon Valley Tech Talks YouTube channel, and the link is shared below. Alternatively, you can also check the Silicon Valley Tech Talks website for a complete repository of Technology Podcasts. Thank you all for being part of the Silicon Valley Tech Talks page and supporting this knowledge-sharing initiative. Thanks to all our guests, who have shared excellent insights on Technology and Innovation. Looking forward to 2025. 2024 Tech Talks Highlights: https://lnkd.in/gTGXsC6u Silicon Valley Tech Talks website: https://lnkd.in/gFaMa2fS #technology #techtalks #siliconvalleytechtalks #ai #artificialintelligence #genAi #connectivity #wireless #telco #6g #innovations #RFsubsystems #hardware #meta #datacenters #videocreatiion #marketing #digitalmarketing #gtm 

China and the AI Race (Part 2)—Emergence of Global Data Economy: In this second part of our podcast with Olaf J Groth, our discussion focused on tensions around access to global data, the rise of a global data economy, and the tools that could be employed to build such an economy. For those who missed Part 1, we have shared the Part 1 link below towards the end of this post. The following are key points from our discussion with Olaf in Part 2: (1) Olaf called out three parts to the cognitive triad in the AI context: (1) compute power (chips), (2) AI models, and (3) Data. One needs to harness parts of these three pillars to develop AI applications. Hence, data is a critical part of the AI equation. Data is becoming the central point of Geo politics and Geo-economics. (2) In the future, we expect to see more discernment from countries regarding where their citizens' data is going and how it's being consumed. Data will become the key object of negotiations around the world, and we saw this instantiated when Elon Musk went to China and requested that the data gathered from Tesla cars in China be moved to the United States. A world in which one country or region will have complete technological sovereignty over all three pillars (Chips, AI Models, and Data) will not be efficient. A certain amount of data must inevitably cross borders to be processed by the best tools and chips and then bring the best solutions across the borders again. (3) These macro trends in data will lead to agency-assured data in the future, and as a result, the global data economy will grow. This new data paradigm will enable individuals to contribute data and feel secure and trusted that the data will be used for the right purposes and according to one's preferences. (4) Several tools will be developed along the way to help build that vision of the global data economy. One of the interesting approaches Olaf shared was watermarking an individual data footprint, disaggregating that footprint, and then reassembling it into data clusters that meet specific market demands. Those data clusters can then be put into the markets for appropriate bids. These clusters will be licensed to be given away and will be trust assured. This approach will lead to a richer experience in creating and allocating value in the data economy.  Link to the Part 1 of this Podcast: https://lnkd.in/gaenXZSm

China and the AI Race (Part-1): We had the honor of interviewing Olaf J Groth, PhD during the latest Silicon Valley Tech Talks episode, which focused on understanding China's progress on AI and its impacts on global and macro aspects. Olaf is a Global Strategist, Think Tank founder, and author of multiple AI books. He is the founder and CEO of Cambrian Futures, a Think Tank advisory firm. He is also part of the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business, Hult International Business School, and the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. This interview will be posted in two parts. Part 1 is posted today, and Part 2 will be posted in a few days. The following are the key highlights of Part 1: (1) A brief overview of where China stands now on AI compared to the USA and some areas in which China might be ahead. (2) In the mid-to-long term, we will see a bifurcated semiconductor ecosystem consisting of the USA and Chinese hemispheres. (3) China and the West must cooperate in certain areas. These include AI safety, beneficial research, and rules around military use of AI. Stay tuned for Part 2, which will focus on the battleground for access to global data and the emergence of the global data economy.

Arm has traditionally been known for leadership in compute architectures and platforms in the mobile segment. However, Arm is now seeing significant growth in the data center space. What's driving that growth for Arm in data center space? Ami Badani (Chief Marketing Officer at Arm) elaborated on this in this short clip and shared a very interesting perspective on how Arm is finding its sweet spot in the data center space due to AI's unique requirements. AI applications in data centers require pairing the CPU with AI accelerators. Arm is partnering with many large companies to provide CPU host compute architectures for such use cases. Nvidia Grace-Blackwell is one key example of an Arm-based CPU architecture paired with an AI accelerator. Please watch the full interview of Ami at: https://lnkd.in/dgUiz8MW

What's the end-user value of WiFi-7? Why should everyday users upgrade their devices because they have WiFi-6 but not WiFi-7? Vijay Nagarajan (VP @ Broadcom) elaborated on this in this short clip. Vijay explains that the generational nomenclature in WiFi technology (i.e., WiFi-6, WiFi-5, etc.) has made it easier to explain the significance of generational shifts in the technology to end users in the first place. In WiFi-7, the 6GHz spectrum is becoming mainstream, providing users with clean frequency channels leading to high capacity and low latency links. As a result, WiFi-7 will lead to a better user experience in many applications and use cases. Please watch the full interview of Vijay at this link: https://lnkd.in/guAeCzV9

What are some of the most overhyped and underhyped aspects in this exciting era of AI? Gen's Chief AI officer, Howie Xu, elaborated this in the short clip below. The full interview of Howie is available at: https://lnkd.in/g7u4vzba

Cybersecurity for Operational Technology (OT) and AI Systems: We had the honor of interviewing Anand Oswal during the latest Silicon Valley Tech Talks episode. Anand is Senior Vice President and General Manager at Palo Alto Networks, one of the global leaders in Cybersecurity. Our discussion with Anand covered insights on cybersecurity challenges for OT and AI systems and the innovations that will address those challenges. Following are the brief highlights of the discussion: (1) Anand provided a comprehensive overview of how OT differs from traditional IT systems, the reasons for trends showing increased cyber attacks on OT systems, and approaches to securing these systems. (2) Anand shared Palo Alto Networks' unique approach to securing AI systems and the corporate use of AI. We also discussed the flip side of how AI will improve cyber security.  (3) Anand shared his insightful perspective on the future of network security in light of the fast-changing technology landscape globally due to advancements happening in AI, quantum, and other new technologies. (4) We concluded the discussion with Anand's excellent leadership advice for professionals in the early stages of their careers. #networksecurity #cybersecurity #ai #siliconvalleytechtalks