I remember sending my first email in the early 1990s, a clunky experience that meant logging on to two different computer systems. I thought it would never replace the much swifter fax. The internet was already revolutionizing the flow of information, and as editor of the Guardian’s gargantuan media section in the U.K. (printed every week with 50 pages of job ads), I was the proud owner of one of the first “WAP-enabled” mobile telephones. I mused in the front-cover headline whether this was “The End of Newspapers?”
Newspapers fight on, and today I am at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, contemplating the next technological revolution. It turns out it’s a bit more consequential than the arrival of email.
Thousands of digital leaders from around the world are here, displaying the latest in robotics, quantum computing, and IQ AI, which is grappling with the relationship between us—humans—and the multitude of AI agents that proffer help and arouse suspicion.
One of the largest pavilions in the seven exhibition halls of installations and exhibits (robots making sushi; virtual reality table football; cars that are phones; medical devices that might save the world) is the home of Qualcomm. No. 117 on the Fortune 500 list, the telecommunications giant was founded in San Diego in the 1980s and is now at the heart of a debate about a tech-enabled world.
Mobile 6G sounds prosaic—just another development phase for cell phones, which started with phone calls (2G), brought us texts (3G), data (4G), and smartphones (5G).
It isn’t. 6G will be the telecommunication system for the AI age—for all the data passing between us, AI agents, and the real world, where phones will be just one part of the digital ecology. The internet of everything is finally arriving.
117
Qualcomm’s ranking on the Fortune 500
“AI will fundamentally change our mobile experiences,” Qualcomm chief executive, Cristiano Amon says. “It’s going to change how we think about our smartphones. Think about our personal computing. Think about and interact with a car. The car is now a computing surface.
“If you actually believe in the AI revolution, 6G will be required. Resistance is futile.”
Akash Palkhiwala is Qualcomm’s chief financial officer and chief operating officer. I spent some time with him at the company’s stand, as his leading engineers took me through a 6G future where individuals will have real-time information delivered to them via their glasses. Palkhiwala compliments me on my watch, which only does one thing. It tells me the time.
“6G is going to be the first time that connectivity and AI come together in the network. What we’re building is the first AI-native wireless network that’s ever been built,” he explains.
“If you actually believe in the AI revolution, 6G will be required. Resistance is futile.”
Cristiano Amon, Qualcomm’s chief executive
“The traffic that we expect on 6G is way different than what we had before,” says Palkhiwala. “Before, it was all about consumer traffic. We expect 6G to be driven by [AI] agent traffic. Think about all these use cases where there are AI agents sitting on various devices—your glasses, your watch, your phone, your PC. These agents are going to be talking back and forth across the network to other agents and services.
“The traffic completely changes. 6G is being built with this idea that the traffic that goes on the network is not just going to be consumer voice calls or downloading videos, we’re going to have agents talking to each other, so the reliability of the network becomes very important.”
“6G is going to be the first time that connectivity and AI come together in the network. What we’re building is the first AI-native wireless network that’s ever been built.”
Akash Palkhiwala, Qualcomm’s chief financial officer & chief operating officer
On-device capabilities (the ability of your phone to process far more data); edge computing (locally sourced IT technology rather than distant data centers); more efficient use of available bandwidth (AI-enabled load control); and greater cloud access will all come together to produce a new wireless network.
I ask Palkhiwala what this all might mean for a mother from Arkansas?
“That’s a great question,” he answers (it isn’t, but it is an attempt to bring the issue home for non–technology experts).
“Today we are in the application economy,” he notes. “On the phone, you want to make a travel reservation, you go to one application. You want to order an Uber, you go to a second application. You want to order food, you go to a third application, movie tickets, etc. The user has to go through that effort.
“In the future, you think of the app economy moving over to an agent economy, where there’s one agent I’m interacting with, and I can ask that agent to book me a movie ticket or a plane ticket, to order food for me, get an Uber for me. It knows everything about me.”
On the stand there is an interactive tabletop display that used to look impossibly modern in movies 20 years ago. With the swipe of a finger, a video plays. It is of a driver arriving at a supermarket where there is a waiting robot with bags of groceries it already knew you wanted.
Qualcomm says the first 6G applications will be in consumer testing by the time of the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028. By 2029, rollouts will begin. Many are still getting their heads around applied AI, and in the U.K., where I live, 5G is still spotty and drops out whenever on the train. Mobile World Congress is a gathering of thousands of people all focused on the possibilities of an AI-enabled future. How it works out will take the brainpower of many millions more.
