What you must know:
- Know-how requirements are the spine of at the moment’s and tomorrow’s seamless, security-rich and clever digital experiences.
- As edge AI expands, standardized applied sciences allow new person experiences and trusted digital infrastructure at scale.
- Qualcomm’s management in international expertise requirements helps drive innovation, ecosystem interoperability and trade success.
If you stream 4K video in your smartphone, take a crystal‑clear name in your favourite wi-fi earbuds, or share your 5G connection as a hotspot for associates who lack connectivity, there’s a core enabler at work: international expertise requirements. They guarantee your system connects to at the moment’s 5G and Wi-Fi 7 — and tomorrow’s AI-native 6G and Wi-Fi 8 wi-fi networks — pairs effortlessly with Bluetooth equipment, performs high-definition video streams, and runs AI-powered functions effectively throughout totally different units and working programs.
Know-how requirements are the muse of our imaginative and prescient for clever computing all over the place. At Qualcomm, we view requirements as catalysts for 3 foundational pillars of recent expertise: connectivity, compute and intelligence. By aligning frequent frameworks across the newest applied sciences, international requirements allow these capabilities to be applied persistently throughout smartphones, PCs, vehicles, glasses, wearables and broader IoT programs. This consistency helps guarantee interoperability, accelerates growth and helps the diversification wanted to deliver that imaginative and prescient to life.
Because the VP of Technical Requirements at Qualcomm Europe, I lead a worldwide workforce throughout 20 international locations, working in areas together with connectivity, multimedia, AI, automotive, semiconductor requirements and extra. On this weblog submit, I’ll construct on our earlier discussions on the worth of requirements and discover how they proceed to form innovation and scale. I’ll spotlight a few of the key areas we’re actively engaged on at the moment, together with mobile, Wi-Fi, video and audio coding, and reminiscence, the place our management stays central to driving progress throughout the ecosystem.
Why expertise requirements matter
As smartphones and digital ecosystems turn into extra related, their complexity continues to develop. Know-how requirements play a important position in managing this complexity, for instance in these a number of key areas:
- Cross-device scalability: Requirements be sure that units (each {hardware} and software program) from totally different distributors work seamlessly collectively, enabling international attain and constant person experiences.
- Quicker time to market: Streamlined growth and well-defined certification processes enable new applied sciences and options to succeed in customers extra shortly.
- Decrease growth price: Requirements supply a typical basis that permits OEMs and ecosystem companions to streamline product design and keep away from reinventing core applied sciences, finally optimizing useful resource investments.
- Ecosystem progress: Open, consensus-driven requirements foster innovation, develop alternatives and assist guarantee a degree enjoying discipline for all contributors.
Driving widespread adoption of latest applied sciences
Our expertise management in transformative applied sciences is constructed on a long time of groundbreaking work in connectivity, compute and AI. To show early-stage improvements into real-world options, standardization is commonly a key step — akin to 5G NR by means of 3GPP and LPDDR5 by means of JEDEC — earlier than they are often extensively commercialized. These standardization efforts are helpful for enabling constant, optimized experiences throughout industries and geographies.
Our contributions to international requirements have formed and superior the expertise panorama in a number of areas akin to:
- Mobile: From the early days of CDMA to LTE, 5G — and now laying the muse for 6G — Qualcomm has persistently participated within the evolution of mobile expertise. Our improvements span core facets of wi-fi system design (e.g., waveforms, channel coding and MIMO) and lengthen to system structure and new use circumstances like lower-complexity IoT, sidelink and even non-terrestrial networks (NTN), which leverage mobile constructing blocks to harmonize satellite tv for pc and terrestrial communication. A serious milestone on this journey got here earlier this yr with the determination on the 6G Research Merchandise in 3GPP Launch 20, marking the formal begin of the 6G standardization course of, whilst 5G Superior continues to evolve. At this time, we’re actively contributing to 6G growth, specializing in key improvements and use circumstances like AI-native air interface and built-in sensing and communication (ISAC). Via these efforts, we’re shaping the way forward for clever connectivity and redefining what’s doable in mobile communications.
- Wi-Fi: Wi-Fi has advanced from primary wi-fi entry to a important enabler of high-performance native connectivity, for properties, enterprises and industrial environments. Every technology introduces new capabilities: MU-MIMO in Wi-Fi 5, uplink OFDMA in Wi-Fi 6 and Multi-Hyperlink Operation in Wi-Fi 7. Qualcomm has helped outline these options to assist sooner, extra dependable and lower-latency connections. As we sit up for Wi-Fi 8, our focus is on ultra-reliable, deterministic efficiency and enhanced multi-link capabilities to assist real-time functions like XR and industrial automation.
- Video compression: Video codecs are instrumental for delivering high-quality media throughout constrained networks and units. Requirements like HEVC (H.265) and VVC (H.266) have enabled environment friendly compression by means of improvements in body compression and filtering. It’s honest to say that video compression expertise has performed a pivotal position in enabling the present ecosystem of video consumption on smartphones. Our contributions have helped enhance visible high quality whereas lowering bandwidth and energy consumption. Now, we’re advancing next-generation codecs akin to H.267 and exploring AI-assisted compression instruments to assist immersive media experiences, from dwell streaming to on-device generative content material.
- Speech codecs: Speech requirements guarantee pure, intelligible voice communication throughout numerous environments, from cell calls to satellite tv for pc hyperlinks. Applied sciences like voice-activity detection and bandwidth extension have reworked cell voice high quality. We’ve contributed to defining key codecs together with QCELP, EVRC and EVS. The newest on this space is the Extremely-Low Bitrate Codec (aka ULBC) for AI-powered speech compression over difficult hyperlinks akin to satellite tv for pc, bringing high-quality voice to a brand new array of use circumstances.
- Reminiscence and storage: Reminiscence and storage applied sciences like LPDDR and UFS are important for delivering predictable efficiency in cell and AI workloads. These requirements govern bandwidth, latency and vitality effectivity. We’ve contributed throughout a number of generations, serving to outline specs that assist high-speed imaging, on-device AI and real-time edge intelligence. Our present work in JEDEC focuses on next-gen LPDDR/UFS, reminiscence pooling and disaggregated architectures, and automotive-grade reliability — enabling scalable, power-efficient architectures for future functions.
Shaping the way forward for wi-fi expertise
We’re dedicated to advancing the following period of wi-fi, AI and immersive applied sciences by means of foundational analysis and early contributions to international requirements. Via energetic engagement with 3GPP and different key organizations, we’re paving the best way for 6G; a future the place intelligence is constructed into the community and units, sensing is seamlessly built-in, and terrestrial and non-terrestrial programs converge to unlock transformative new experiences.
Our focus is obvious: to take part and lead in international requirements, ship improvements that scale and assist guarantee expertise stays safe, environment friendly and accessible worldwide.
