Swisscom Outpost Silicon Valley

🌍 Exciting times in #innovation! Last week’s Plug and Play Tech Center's Winter Summit brought together Startups, VCs, and Corporates to explore our biggest challenges. The #future of business is being shaped by cutting-edge technologies like #AI, #sustainability, and #MaterialScience. Here are some of the key takeaways: ⚡ AI is continues its transformational march. But this time, we heard more talk about #SmallLanguageModels. These offer less hallucination than their large counterparts, and can be better suited for vertical specific use cases. 💡 #BusinessModelInnovation: A potentially huge shift is how companies pay for software: historically, we went from licenses to subscriptions to usage-based pricing models. Now, confident AI companies are starting to do outcome-based pricing, which aligns customer and vendor incentives more closely. 🌱 Innovations in sustainability: #CarbonCapture and #efuels are the main drivers, as well as #hydrogen. And if you’re in Switzerland and working on hydrogen, follow Plug and Play Tech Center because they’re organizing a hydrogen week in Switzerland in February! 💎 Advances in materials science: genAI is helping iterate hardware prototyping and create new materials, including #DiamondSemiconductors, proteins, antibiotics and #PhotonicComputing. 🚀 What are your thoughts on these emerging trends? #energy #materialsScience #startups #SiliconValley

Thank you all HWZ Digital Leaders for visiting Swisscom Outpost last Tuesday! It was a pleasure meeting you and talking to you all, we hope you got some nice insights and innovative ideas from us or other companies you visited here in Bay Area. It is always very motivating for us to present in front of people, who are eager to learn something new (and can also teach us a thing or two). This way we can help to "bring" a bit of Silicon Valley innovation mindset back to Switzerland. Special thank you Sven Ruoss, Laura Leber, Gert Christen 🚀 for organising the visit. The more we can help to spread the knowledge about technology and innovation, the better future we are creating! 🙏

🌟 Exploring AI Trends at the Open-i Event: Insights from Silicon Valley 🌟 Yesterday, I had the privilege of speaking at the Open-i event, the pioneering Swiss innovation and dialogue platform for the economy and science sectors. Together with my colleagues from Swisscom, we shared diverse perspectives on the evolving world of AI. My focus was on AI in Silicon Valley—a region where innovation isn’t just a buzzword but a way of life. Here are some key takeaways from my talk: 🚀 AI is omnipresent in Silicon Valley—the region is home to 43% of all global AI startups, and the culture reflects this dominance. Even highway billboards target niche AI audiences, demonstrating the unique openness and dynamism that drives disruption. 📊 Rapid growth of AI startups—in March 2023, platforms like There’s an AI for That listed around 3,000 AI tools. Today, this number grows significantly, with thousands of new tools emerging monthly. The so-called Cerebral Valley alone hosts 80+ AI-focused events every month, reinforcing Silicon Valley’s role as a global innovation hub. 💡 The AI Premium—early-stage AI startups in 2023 experienced a noticeable surge in valuations compared to non-AI startups, driven by investor confidence in technologies like generative AI. 🎯 VC trends reflect quality over hype—while venture capital investment in AI has decreased since 2021, this indicates a shift toward backing sustainable, impactful innovations over short-lived trends. At Swisscom, our 25-year presence in Silicon Valley provides us with a unique advantage. Our team at the Swisscom Outpost Silicon Valley identifies high-quality opportunities and builds impactful partnerships. Whether it’s steering clear of overhyped projects or championing game-changing innovations, we’re shaping the future with long-term value in mind. A heartfelt thank you to my talented colleagues Sarah Levy for her invaluable insights on how to make AI projects successful. Rolf Neukom who introduced our smart GenAI-based chatbot, Sam. Daniel Dobos for showcasing our collaborations with universities and research institutions. Olaf Schulze for his excellent moderation, guiding the discussions and ensuring a seamless flow throughout the event. As well as Silvan Lohri, Maran Pereirasamy, MBA, Thomas Hochstrasser, Olaf Schulze, Philipp Schmid, Bruno K., Tina Willibald And a special thanks to the Open-i community for fostering meaningful dialogue. Events like this highlight the importance of connecting global innovation with Swiss excellence 🌐✨ #AI #Innovation #Swisscom #SiliconValley #Openi

Not all heroes wear capes — some attend the Internet Identity Workshop! 🦸♂️🦸♀️ Our Swisscom duo just returned from #IIW with exciting insights into the future of identity and privacy tech. Dive into their adventure below! Passionate about digital trust? Let's start a conversation! #Identity #DigitalTrust #Innovation

🌍 Insights from TechCrunch Disrupt 2024: The Future of Space, SaaS, & AI 🌍 This week we attended #TechCrunch #Disrupt in San Francisco, where some of the brightest minds across Space, SaaS, Fintech, and AI came together to share game-changing ideas and trends. Here are some key takeaways from this year’s event: 🚀 #SpaceTech is evolving quickly, with new solutions emerging in satellite maintenance, space debris management, and navigation. For instance, ThinkOrbital developed an Xray to scan satellites, and a robot arm to service them. And Lumi Space shoots photons from a ground-based laser at space debris to literally shoot it out of the way of satellites. As investment grows in this sector, startups with #DualUse (government and commercial) strategies show resilience by diversifying their market risk. #Advice for founders: if you’re building in dual-use, make sure you’re not developing 2 completely separate products/strategies! 💼 #SaaS: Even though #AIAgents are raising huge funds (Sierra) it seems the industry is still figuring out the exact definition of agents. Most are built into #chatbots with #LLMs, and then plug in to other services or apps so the user has to click around less (imagine an airline chatbot that directly rebooks your flight and updates your calendar without you ever having to leave the chatbot). But basically, agents can be deployed every time you know which action a user will take after the first action. How much #value the agent offers depends on how much time and effort it takes the user to do those steps manually (and of course, how accurate the agent is). 📡 #AI: The #AgenticAI example above was in a chatbot, but it looks like more general purpose agents will soon also help with anything on your screen. Similar to Microsoft’s announced-and-then-pulled-back Recall, there was news from both Anthropic and Google this week working on similar features: Anthropic, via Youtube: http://bit.ly/48v93Rg Google, via The Verge: https://bit.ly/4fuoL1r 🤖 #Humanoids: Even though humanoid robots were in the media quite a bit recently, they weren’t a topic at Disrupt. The consensus is that they won’t live in our households anytime soon, because the huge amount of training data simply doesn’t exist yet. As innovation across these fields accelerates, there’s a world of opportunity for telecommunications and tech companies to collaborate with these emerging sectors. Let’s stay connected and explore what’s next together! #TechCrunchDisrupt #Innovation #Telecommunications #Startups #Switzerland

🎃 The “Scary” Side of Technology 👻 As Halloween rolls around, let’s take a moment to reflect on the eerie side of tech. While we often focus on how technology can enhance our lives, there are some things that might make even the bravest among us shiver. Here are a few spooky insights: Digital Shadows 🕵️♂️ With every app we download, every site we visit, and every online purchase we make, we’re leaving a digital footprint. Studies show that nearly all apps track some form of user data, often for advertising purposes. AppCensus found that many apps even collect data unrelated to their functionality, sharing it with third-party networks. AI "Mind Readers" 🧠 AI algorithms today are surprisingly adept at predicting human behavior. Research from the University of Cambridge and Stanford found that Facebook’s AI can predict personality traits with high accuracy based on user activity - sometimes even better than friends & family. Deepfake Dilemmas 🖼️ The rise in deepfake technology is a real challenge. According to Sensity AI, the volume of deepfake content online doubled in just a year, with many videos designed to spread misinformation. The Rise of the Machines 🤖 Automation and AI-driven processes are taking over routine jobs. The World Economic Forum predicts that 85 million jobs could be displaced by machines by 2025. While this offers a chance to develop new skills, it also raises fears about the future of work. Big Data, Bigger Monsters 📊 The power of big data comes with risks. IBM’s Security X-Force report noted that data breaches compromised over 180 million records in the first half of 2023 alone, affecting everything from healthcare to financial services. 🎃 This Halloween, let’s remember that with great power comes great responsibility. As technology continues to evolve, it’s up to us to ensure innovation serves humanity – and not the other way around. 👻 What “scary” tech trends do you think are lurking in the shadows? Share your thoughts below!

Representing Swisscom Outpost, Vladimir Michalec had the pleasure of attending the #TEDAI 2024 conference in San Francisco last week. By the way, did you know that #TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design? The first conference was held in 1984 in Monterey, California, where the Compact Disc (CD) was presented as the latest technological invention. It’s great that with TEDAI, the conference returned to TED’s Californian roots. The main TED conference has been held in Vancouver since 2014, but its TEDAI branch took place in San Francisco for the first time in 2023. Thanks to the AI theme, the focus is once again on innovative technology and its impact on our lives. Unsurprisingly, Generative AI (#GenAI) is the hot topic right now. It drives innovation, investments, and life in Silicon Valley today. But it has not yet transformed our lives completely. Yes, there are promises, predictions, expectations—but there’s also a lot of work to be done by researchers, startup founders, and engineers at big enterprises. Some of their best minds gave talks this past week, giving us lots of food for thought. What are the main challenges the industry is facing? Lack of data or data processing efficiency is one of them. Or perhaps the technology we’re building GenAI with is not optimal. Quantum Neomorphic, or maybe Thermodynamic Computing may be the next evolution of AI compute platform. But even today’s GenAI can be used in novel ways to solve our problems, such as building AI agents that “play” the game of designing new drugs for personalized treatment, or creating foundational models of our physical world to give robots the ability to learn and adapt on their own, helping us with daily chores. We can also allow AI models time to “think” before answering, instead of expending more resources on training, to provide us with better solutions. There were many inspiring examples of what’s coming. But as with every new technology, it’s not all roses with GenAI. Some speakers warned us that we need to proactively work with the AI industry to avoid negative impacts on humanity—such as AI stealing our youth’s attention, making them talk to virtual AI friends more than real humans. Or the risk of GenAI models being used for malicious purposes, like attacks on nations or the development of biological weapons. People from the art industry pointed out that with GenAI being ubiquitous, a completely new approach to art and copyright is needed. In all these examples, we heard arguments from both sides, which makes TEDAI a great platform for intelligent discussion — if only this were the case everywhere in our society nowadays. With over 100 AI events in the Bay Area every month, it’s difficult to find the ones that are truly valuable and enriching. After attending TEDAI for the first time, we can definitely say this conference takes one of the top spots, if not the highest. If you can, watch the (hopefully soon) available recordings. It’s truly inspiring!

🌐 Swisscom Outpost had the privilege of participating in the HMG Annual C-Level Technology Leadership Summit in Mountain View, where we contributed to an insightful panel discussion on the challenges and expectations facing today’s Security Leaders. 💡 Check out the key takeaways below!

Continuing our fall tradition, Swisscom Outpost attended the largest telecom event in North America, Mobile World Congress, held last week in Las Vegas. While smaller in scale compared to its global counterpart in Barcelona, this event remains a critical opportunity for Swisscom Outpost to stay on top of the latest trends in the U.S. telecom market. With over 250 exhibitors, a significant portion of the event focused on industries and enterprises, with key highlights in Private 5G networks, 5G antennas, IoT, edge computing, network slicing, and more. Surprisingly, only a few exhibitors showcased dedicated AI products—a contrast to the AI-focused conferences often seen in the Bay Area. Regardless, AI remained a central theme in discussions, panels, and summits throughout the show. This year, Dušan Vuksanovic and Vladimir Michalec represented Swisscom Outpost at the event, actively participating in panel discussions and roundtables covering sports, entertainment, and the growth opportunities AI presents for telecom operators, including Swisscom. A few thoughts based on our observations: • Connected Industries: Telecom operators must collaborate more closely with industry verticals like aviation, automotive, and manufacturing. The potential for growth is clear, but it requires dedicated efforts from telecom providers to drive these partnerships forward. • AI Opportunities: While AI’s role in optimizing networks and processes remains a top priority for telcos, there are also significant business growth opportunities. Telecom operators have a chance to become Edge AI infrastructure providers for enterprises, as demand for real-time AI inference increases. However, success in this area requires a deep understanding of customer challenges and collaboration with domain-specific partners. • Non-Terrestrial Networks: Satellite communication is becoming an essential complement to existing telecom services. While it won’t replace traditional networks, finding the right partners to deploy and operate satellites with robust coverage and capacity is a long-term endeavor that telcos should prioritize. This technology also enables new business models, such as global IoT services, that transcend the traditional barriers of operating in a single market. • Entertainment & Sports: 5G technology enables enhanced fan experiences like instant access to multiple camera angles, player statistics, and augmented reality (AR) overlays. As sports and entertainment providers aim to deepen their audience engagement, personalized experiences using AI-powered analytics and localized data become crucial. Our key takeaway from the conference: The future of telecom isn’t just about the tech—it’s about partnerships. To unlock real growth, telcos need to think beyond traditional boundaries, embrace new partners, experiment in untapped areas, and take calculated risks. The boldest moves today will define the leaders of tomorrow.

Last week, San Francisco hosted over 1000 events for #SFTechWeek. From #DefenseTech, #CorporateInnovation, #Energy and of course #AI and #AIAgents everywhere, the week showcased how unique Silicon Valley is in that it remains the global innovation hotspot for any and all industries you can think of! One such highlight outside of our usual focus areas was the event with Neuralink’s Austin Mueller (EPFL alumn) together with Swiss Business Hub USA and Swiss-American Chamber of Commerce: - Neuralink’s goal is to create a Brain-Computer Interface, a general input/output device - With it, the patient has over 60 threads in his brain, each is thinner than a human hair - Before Neuralink, the highest number of implanted electrodes was 100. Neuralink has 1000! - The first successful operation was done in January 2024. The patient can now use computers with his brain, and even play video games like Civilization 6 and Mario Kart.