Augmented reality technology is transforming the way people learn, play and connect with the things around them.

The launch of iOS 11 made augmented reality available overnight for millions of users, and propelled Apple into the largest AR platform in the world. In the middle of last year, Apple introduced ARKit, which blends digital objects and information with the environment, taking apps far beyond the screen and freeing them to interact with the real world in entirely new ways. ARKit 1.5 was released to developers a month ago and will soon become available to consumers.

AR will be available for millions of iOS devices through ARKit, a framework that brings the experiences of the virtual world into the real world. Through iOS 11 and hardware on iPhones and iPads using the A9 processor and above, people could experience AR on their iPhone SE, iPhone 6s, iPhone 7, iPhone 8, and iPhone X, as well as on iPad.

AMON

Jakob Lykkegaard ran a mobile game-developing studio in Bangkok for six months. But when Apple launched ARKit, he jumped in to set up his new company, Lykke Studio, focused only on AR and new technologies. With his three-person team, Lykkegaard introduced an augmented reality puzzle game called AMON – “the god of air” – once Apple launched iPhone 8 and X.

“After Apple launched ARKit in the middle of 2017, I spent three months to develop the game,” he said, noting it has been on the market since September last year.

And now he is working on his third start-up after his first two companies were acquired. The latest focuses on game development. From Thailand he built Juice Cubes, a game that is big on a global scale with more than 28 million downloads.

“I got into developing the AR game because I like new innovation and AR is just the beginning of what will come. I was excited when we got AR everywhere. I want to be first to understand and to learn what we can build with AR and how we can improve it over time as well,” said Lykkegaard.

He believes that in the future all games will eventually come to AR, because it is much better to have something that feels like real life and yet is virtual that people can interact with and learn from and play with. People can play games at museums, and it’s been found that they can then understand more because when they play, it is much easier to learn about the museum displays.

For AMON, Lykkegaard said, he drew on real statues from 24 museums all around the world, using a high-definition laser scan to adapt them for use inside the game.

“We get the actual 3D scan files from the museums, my local Thai 3D artists scale them down and make sure they will work for the mobile phone,” said Lykkegaard.

In playing AMON, players need to walk around the statues to get the puzzle in the right spot. They cannot just sit and play a game any more, but need to be active and move.

Once the statue is reaching completion, history and information about that statue, such as who made it and which museum houses it, will be appear so that players learn more.

“The feedback from players is very good, because an AR game changes the way they interact with the game,” said Lykkegaard.

AMON has now exceeded 40,000 downloads worldwide. There are around 400 million capable of supporting the game, which is a paid app priced at US$3.99 (Bt112.5).

Museums are able to reach a new public as they explore the statues, and the public gets to enjoy learning about the statues while playing the game in their living rooms. They might even feel enticed to visit the museum to check out the real statue.

“We work with both augmented reality and artificial intelligence (AI),” said Lykkegaard. “My studio want to take the very latest technologies and build them into something that consumers can see and figure out how to build from. More games will come out on both AR and AI in the next few months.”

The market is big enough to support his games, and give him space to develop

He has been able to do this because of ARKit. Before that became available, it was not possible to play such sophisticated games without owning very expensive special hardware. Apple’s devices and the AR Kit, he said, made building the games possible and even his mom can play.

“It helps me to save money and time,” said Lykkegaard. “Before ARKit, I needed more than 1,000 engineers to build a game like AMON. Now, we need just a few people.”

Homeprise

Thanyaporn Sriskulpinyo, chief innovation officer and founder at Homeprise, an online interior design and home decoration platform, said that she used Apple’s ARKit to make it easier for people to decorate their home by themselves.

The concept behind Homeprise Real app is to collect furniture products from over 50 local manufacturers nationwide, scanning and turning them into models, and get them out to the marketplace. Once consumers are thinking about buying a new piece of furniture, they can check out the AR-formatted furniture in their own real-life room before making a purchase decision. There are around 4,000 stock keeping units or SKUs available for shopping with the AR experience.

So far the Homeprise Real app has over 1,000 downloads. Thanyaporn said with ARKit, Homeprise can offer virtual furniture objects that users can put down in their real home to see how they would look.

It can help companies increase their sales.

“We partner with top real-estate companies nationwide,” said Thanyaporn. “Currently, we have decorated for over 200 units of condos, townhomes and houses.”

It is a free app, so revenue comes from commissions per transaction from furniture manufacturers.

Homeprise was set up two years ago, following a year in which the company developed AR itself. Once ARKit was launched, Thanyaporn turned to develop AR with that technology, which was user-friendly and made developing AR very easy.

Now, she is planning to transform its other app, Homeprise, into an AR app. Homeprise will focus on offering decoration themes, which were created by over 30 interior designers.

Thanyaporn said the company is preparing to fundraise US$25 million (Bt786 million) to improve the logistics systems for its furniture partners and to further develop new products and services.

Sandbox

From Facebook games and mobile games to AR games, Zac Alcampo, head of Studio Sandbox, said that AR technology will transform the game field.

Since last year, Sandbox Studio has worked with Apple through the ARKit to develop an AR game that they hope will open a new door in activities and game-playing.

Currently, it has two AR games available (developed with ARKit) – the AR Block Party and ARK Saga. A third game is in the pipeline and is being developed with ARKit 1.5. Both are paid apps.

Launched two months ago, AR Block Party is a fun, social, and party game, said Alcampo.

ARK Saga was launched two weeks ago.

“What we want to do is to actually focus on kids’ games. We want to help them develop good hands-and-eyes coordination, problem solving, and get them active,” said Alcampo.

He said ARKit has help pave the way for users to discover easy new ways to explore the device. For example, on AR Block Party, people use the phone as a tool to play a game, while in ARK Saga players take on the role of a director to choose to play in any view of the game they want. With ARKit 1.5, he said, he will develop multi-player AR games.

He said the potential of AR games is really strong, because there are so many mobile games, with over 400 mobile games coming out daily for Android and iOS platforms.

“AR and ARKit changed everything in mobile games … and it is nice to be at the spearhead, to be at the front of development,” said Alcampo. “We found ARKit is the best solution for developing AR.”

Chayanat, who is enrolled in the Information Systems Development (ISD) curriculum at the Redemptorist Vocational School for People with Disabilities, last year took part in a coding training programme from Microsoft. It gave him an opportunity to fulfill his childhood dream of becoming a programmer.

Chayanat, who suffered from perinatal asphyxia which later developed into spasticity, now has the skills and confidence to become a giver as he teaches other people how to code.

Meanwhile, Phinyaphat, also a student of Information Systems Development (ISD) at the same school, was able to master digital skills despite having been congenitally diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), which normally makes it very difficult for her to study with other children.

“Using games like Minecraft as a learning tool also makes coding more fun,” she said. “I felt much more motivated, as I enjoyed the whole process and didn’t feel bored or stressed at all. This approach helps a lot to speed up my learning process on digital skills.”

Microsoft (Thailand) last week announced it will expand its YouthSpark programme with a Bt3 million grant, reinforcing the company’s commitment to equip every young person to be “future ready”. Regardless of their background, the company aims for all students to acquire the digital skills and knowledge required to succeed in the tech-fuelled world and become the driving force of Thailand’s digital economy.

The workshop was just one of many learning opportunities planned for underprivileged and disabled youth under the partnership with the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society and ChangeFusion, as well as the two-year collaboration with the Redemptorist Foundation for People with Disabilities (Mahatai).

Microsoft said it remains firm in its commitment to provide access to computer science education to all Thai youth, including those with disabilities or living in remote areas.

Dhanawat Suthumpun, managing director, Microsoft (Thailand), said that the tech company believes that every single young person in Thailand regardless of their abilities and background should have equal access to a computer-science education.

Somjai Prasertjeerangkul, the deputy secretary-general, National Digital Economy and Society Commission said that Thailand 4.0 focuses on using innovations to develop the country, not only through adding value to products and services with technology, but also by reducing social inequality through income distribution and equal access to opportunities.

He said the policy reflects the government’s commitment to helping people move forward together without leaving anyone behind, and requires contribution from both public and private sectors.

Microsoft YouthSpark is a clear example of an initiative that supports the policy and will help us achieve the goal faster, said Somjai.

In 2018, Microsoft aims to increase the number of teachers and youth-serving organisations that can bring in-demand digital skills to youth inside and outside of the classroom. The company said it would enhance the capacities of organisations that work with young people with disabilities and youth from underprivileged communities. It will also extend the availability of digital education to every young person to create long-term systematic change through two YouthSpark initiatives.

The first initiative is the “Enabling Equal Opportunities through Digital Skills for Thai Youth with Disabilities and Underprivileged Communities” and the second is “Advancing Digital Skills for Thai Youths to Drive Thailand’s Digital Economy”.

The Redemptorist Foundation for People with Disabilities (RFPD) provided digital training to over 1,000 people with disabilities in Thailand in 2017. Through the #YouthSpark grants, RFPD managed to introduce computer science education in the curriculum in eight schools in six provinces.

In 2018, with Microsoft YouthSpark, RFPD will provide additional opportunities to Thais with disabilities to get access to computer science through a “train-the-trainer” initiative.

In partnership with the Office of National Economic and Social Development (ONES) and ChangeFusion, Microsoft aims to train 1,200 young trainers by October this year.

Samsung Electronics will focus on the US to seek growth opportunities in the upcoming fifth-generation network market after its success in India with Long Term Evolution network equipment, said the chief of Samsung’s network business.

“We are aggressively starting to enter the US market with Verizon,” said Kim Young-ki during a press conference at Mobile World Congress 2018 in Barcelona. “We provided some main equipment for 4G in the US in partnership with Verizon and are now entering the 5G fixed wireless access network market there.”

In January, US mobile carrier Verizon selected Samsung to supply commercial 5G FWA network solutions. The two companies will begin by launching commercial 5G services in Sacramento, California, in the second half of 2018.

“FWA using the 800-megahertz bandwidth is an important application in 5G, which is to be launched first among other equipment,” Kim said. “The FWA will commercialize broadband service in the US, increasing social value, and move forward digitalization.”

The president showed confidence in the new 5G market coming up in 2019 at the earliest, which could be a golden opportunity for Samsung to expand its global market share.

Kim vowed to increase its share up to 20 per cent in 5G equipment.

Compared to global players like Nokia, Ericsson and Huawei, Samsung moved too slowly in the fourth-generation era due to insufficient investment.

Kim said by the time India goes from 4G to 5G, Samsung’s global market share could double or triple.

“India is a very hot LTE market right now,” he said. “Multiple vendors including Samsung established more than 100,000 LTE base stations across the country, and more than 100 million people subscribed to LTE services last year.”

On the first day of the MWC, Reliance Jio Infocomm and Samsung announced their continued partnership to bring LTE coverage to 99 percent of the Indian population and significantly improve network capacity across the country.

Indians use 10 gigabytes of data per person annually, far more data than 5 GB to 7 GB by Koreans and Japanese.

In response to a question about competition with Huawei, Kim said credit is the most crucial thing in the telecommunications infrastructure business.

“Consumers can experience products like smartphones before buying them, but can’t try any service before a new network is established,” he said. “Selecting a vendor requires mutual trust between the vender and operator.”

It takes five to 10 years to become a trusted vendor in another country, he said. “Good technology, products and credit will provide value for operators.”

Since 5G utilizes 800-megahertz bandwidth and 28-gigahertz and 3.5 GHz frequency bands, Samsung, which has special technologies for 28 GHz, could offer special value to US operators, he said.

“I think 28 GHz is important … we started developing the technology as the first in the industry.”

“Telecom technology for 28 Ghz is more difficult than others due to the frequency’s natural weakness. We have commercialized such difficult technology,” Kim added.

The company has technologies for 3.5 GHz, too.

When 5G is commercialized based on Samsung’s network infrastructure, consumers will be able to take advantage of the tech giant’s big data created from communication between connected cars and artificial intelligence machines, he said.

“Samsung is in a position that can provide the most useful 5G services when the network is ready,” Kim said.

Award-winning Bill Bryson, known for books such as Notes from a Small Island and A Short History of Nearly Everything, spoke about his vision of the future in a recent exclusive interview.

‘Pretty good chance’

The question was put to the author: Within the space of 30 years, could Earth become a planet where AI and robots make humans redundant – and could there even be a robot author scripting a book called the Little Planet?

“I think there is probably a pretty good chance that we will (become redundant),” says Bryson, adding: “I don’t mean to be pessimistic about these things but I think there is a real possibility that we could create something that would be much smarter and more capable than we are.”

“It’s certainly not beyond the bounds of possibility,” adds Bryson, “to imagine a future when robots, artificial intelligence of some kind, could do things better than humans”.

“Where they can fly airplanes better, be better doctors, be better financial analysts and be able to do all kinds of things better,” Bryson predicts. “And there’s no reason why they couldn’t write better books than the rest of us. So, it’s a kind of scary prospect that we might make ourselves all redundant.”

Bryson’s book A Short History of Nearly Everything is widely acclaimed for its accessible communication of science.

Responding to the question whether Bryson could be replaced by a story-writing robot, the author says: “I just think there isn’t anything that my brain does, that it does so well, that artificial intelligence couldn’t duplicate. So, could I be replaced? Yes. But I mean, I don’t look forward to the day. I’m not urging this to happen, but I think there’s a real possibility where virtually all of us could be replaced by a robot that could do the jobs that we do.”

Bryson, however, says he is certain that artificial intelligence objects of one kind or another will become great tools for the humans.

A new digital forensic kiosk will help police solve cases involving smartphones and laptops more quickly, in a move to keep law enforcement ahead of the game as digital crime soars.

The kiosk will allow officers to retrieve, organise and analyse information from digital devices more efficiently, Second Minister for Home Affairs Josephine Teo said yesterday (Mar 2) in the debate on her ministry’s budget.

The number of criminal cases involving digital media “has gone up manifold”, noted Mrs Teo, who said technology will be used extensively to transform the Home Team.

Laboratories at borders are equipped with state-of-the art systems that can test for multiple biological threats in three hours, compared with 12 hours previously, under a bio-surveillance programme that has been in place since 2009.

The programme is meant to fight biological attacks, which terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda have sought to develop, said Mrs Teo.

“A biological attack will be hard to detect,” she said, noting its potential to cause widespread panic if it spread.

Technology also reduces the time spent on routine tasks and cuts the number of dangerous situations personnel are exposed to, she said.

For example, the Singapore Civil Defence Force has been using its unmanned firefighting machine, which can venture deep into dangerous areas.

The machine is able to shoot giant jets of water and has been “very useful” in fighting major fires in industrial areas such as Sungei Kadut, Jurong Island and Tuas, said Mrs Teo.

“It is remotely controlled… much less risky than deploying our officers,” she added.

On redesigning jobs, Mrs Teo said the ministry will invest in training to enable officers to perform their roles more effectively.

Jobs at the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority are expected to change after two radiographic imaging scanners are installed at Tuas Checkpoint.

The scanners look out for anomalies such as hidden compartments in all arriving buses.

As a result, officers will be freed to perform targeted checks based on scans instead of manual inspection of the buses, which is time consuming and possibly less effective, Mrs Teo said.

In a boost for the private security sector, the Ministry of Home Affairs and Temasek Polytechnic will jointly offer a new specialist diploma in security consultancy next year, Mrs Teo said. It aims to train 250 consultants by 2021.

Last month, Mrs Teo launched an industry transformation plan for the security sector meant to deepen workers’ skillsets, improve their conditions and to increase the sector’s productivity.

Pressure has been building on Twitter — as well as Facebook and Google — to prevent malicious uses of the online platform ranging from harassment to spreading hoaxes and manipulating elections.

“We have witnessed abuse, harassment, troll armies, manipulation through bots and human-coordination, misinformation campaigns, and increasingly divisive echo chambers,” Twitter co-founder and chief executive Jack Dorsey said in a thread of tweets Thursday.

“We aren’t proud of how people have taken advantage of our service, or our inability to address it fast enough.”

A Twitter statement said the social network wants “to partner with outside experts” to get a sense of the health of the Twittersphere by measuring the impact of abuse, spam and manipulation.

The move is the latest by Twitter aimed at curbing disinformation, propaganda and provocation.

Last month, the San Francisco-based one-to-many messaging service launched a crackdown on accounts powered by software “bots” which can artificially amplify a person or cause and which have been accused of manipulating the social network during the 2016 US election.

Twitter said the move was intended to rid the service of spam-spewing automated accounts, and not aimed at people using the service according to the rules.

Since the election, Twitter and others discovered how “bots” had been used to sow political divisions and spread hoaxes.

While Twitter tactics have mostly involved removing content violating its terms of use, it has been accused of “apathy, censorship, political bias, and optimizing for our business and share price instead of the concerns of society,” Dorsey maintained.

“This is not who we are, or who we ever want to be,” he said.

Twitter is asking outside experts to pitch proposals for ways to measure the service’s health by the quality of debates, conversations, and critical thinking.

“We simply can’t and don’t want to do this alone,” Dorsey said.

Twitter asked proposals to be submitted by April 13, promising to fund any that are selected in a process expected to take a couple of months.

“If you want to improve something, you have to be able to measure it,” Dorsey said.

Global System for Mobile Communications’ new edition of mobile economy report was launched during the four-day event. The report says the world’s mobile subscriber growth will be driven by developing countries from now on. It has particularly projected a substantial growth in Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia and Pakistan, as well as markets across Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America.

“There is a growing adoption of mobile-based tools and solutions that aim to spur the digitisation of systems, processes and interactions across a number of industries, especially in low- and middle- income countries,” said Mats Granryd, director general of the GSMA.

By 2025, the mobile industry is forecast to reach 5.9 billion subscribers, equivalent to 71 per cent of the world’s expected population by that point. It is also expected that 5 billion subscribers will be using their mobile phones to access the internet, up from 3.3 billion last year.

Granryd considers streamlined regulation and further policy developments in three main areas – spectrum, infrastructure and economics – as keys to unlocking the full potential of 5G.

“We are at the dawn of a new era in mobile with the imminent launch of the first 5G networks and the Internet of Things poised to further transform the way we live and work,” he said.

“Meanwhile, operators continue to expand and upgrade their 4G networks in order to provide an evolutionary path into the 5G era, and also evolve their offerings to unlock new revenue streams in areas such as e-commerce, content, lifestyle, advertising and marketing, and identity and security.”

According to the report, two-thirds of the world’s mobile connections will be running on 4G and 5G networks by 2025. It is forecast that 4G will account for 53 per cent of global mobile connections by 2025, while 5G networks will grow to account for a further 14 per cent, following the launch of the first commercial 5G networks later this year.

The organisation noted four key barriers to mobile internet adoption that emerging markets must address network performance, high costs of connectivity and handsets, a lack of locally relevant content, and poor digital literacy.

During the congress, Huawei Technologies Co, a global technology giant, outlined its plans to engage in digital transformation of emerging nations.

William Xu, executive director of board and chief strategy marketing officer at Huawei, said the firm would help operators increase efficiency and drive profitable growth by promoting sustainable development of emerging markets.

“We work hand-in-hand with operators to help them identify valued customers, develop valued businesses, and build valued networks. We enable operators to combine industry policy with the utilisation of existing network resources, and integrate technological and business innovation. Our goal is to help them drive new revenue streams and a positive business cycle of service development and network construction,” he said. The firm has planned to formulate its strategic approach from four angles: user, family, asset, and efficiency.

It will closely cooperate with governments and other industry partners on ICT infrastructure initiatives to introduce new services and deliver innovative solutions, he said.

“By 2025, we will see 2 billion more people with mobile connections, and another 500 million broadband homes. Our commitment has always been to enable world’s operators to build roads to new growth,” Xu said.

Zhou Jianjun, vice president of Huawei carrier business group, said operators must deliver a better scenario-based service and accelerate their return on investment in a bid to capitalise on vast opportunities in emerging markets.

He said the firm would focus on three core areas to help operators meet burgeoning demands on their networks_ industry environment, cooperation modes, and business solutions.

“We are engaging with industry partners to build open, cooperative, and win-win industry ecosystems for ICT infrastructure, and creating business solutions to help operators deliver services that generate new revenue streams while simultaneously improving the quality of life in emerging markets,” said Jianjun.

Statistics show that more than 450 million people were connected to mobile internet, and more than 30 million families had access to broadband services last year. However, three billion people in the world still lack access, 870 million do not even own mobile phones, and 1.1 billion families still do not have broadband connections.

“This offers significant opportunities for operators,” he said.

Yet, he considers infrastructure and industry ecosystems as major obstacles for operators that hinder network development in emerging markets, leading to slow revenue growth and rising costs of network construction, operation, and maintenance.

The firm’s innovative business solutions have generated benefits for operators in emerging markets. For instance, the CloudAIR spectrum cloudification technology maximises spectral efficiency in India and Thailand, he said.

Nutanix said in a press statement that it believes its placement in the Leaders quadrant is a strong validation of its leadership in the market it pioneered and of its vision to become the next generation operating system for the enterprise cloud.

Nutanix believes that by utilizing its Enterprise Cloud OS software, customers can realize the simplicity, agility and fractional IT consumption benefits of public cloud, with the control and security needed in the enterprise datacenter. With a unified IT operating environment that melds private, public and distributed clouds, it provides a single point of control for managing infrastructure and applications in any cloud. This delivers a consistent, high-performance and seamless experience for both cloud operators and consumers of cloud-delivered services and applications.

“To us, our strong position in this Magic Quadrant says it all, and we couldn’t be prouder,” said Dheeraj Pandey, co-founder and CEO, Nutanix.  “We believe this stand alone assessment of the HCI space comes at a key inflection point in the market. We are now seeing enterprises of all sizes, across all industries, embrace our pioneering HCI solution as a fundamental element of their multi-cloud architectures. And combined with the Nutanix Enterprise Cloud OS, we feel our mission is freeing customers to build their infrastructure, run their applications, and choose their cloud platform — all on their terms, not a vendor’s lock-in agenda. Ultimately, we believe long-term market leadership starts with this freedom.”

James Wu, president for Southeast Asia at Huawei Technologies, said in a media briefing at the Mobile World Congress (MWC2018) that the firm would largely expand its presence in the region by extending connectivity to include the unconnected and igniting broadband with blazing speed.

“For Southeast Asia, the growth will be driven by big population. We are very confident in economic growth of Southeast Asia as well as our capability in building telecommunication infrastructure there,” he said, boldly.

The region is home to over 653 million people, accounting for 8.59 per cent of the total world population, according to the latest United Nations’ estimates.

“We are committed to providing ICT technology and services in Southeast Asia to push forward digital agenda of these countries. Opportunities are developing together with the digital economy,” he said.

Among the Southeast Asian nations, Wu sees Thailand as one of the most promising spots for the firm’s business expansion, as it has a stable economy and very good 4G network and digital infrastructure in place.

He said the Thai market was as important as that of India, one of most populated nations in the world. He also considers Myanmar as a critical market, thanks to the government’s efforts to build a seamless 4G network by issuing spectrum licences to private firms, for one thing.

“These markets have a very big potential. So, we are committed to bringing advanced technology and solutions to the markets. We will work with our local partners to build the ecosystem, sharing our solutions and expertise with the local communities,” he said.

According to Wu, the firm will equally focus on all the nations in the region, regardless of the development gap between CLMV (Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Vietnam) and some other nations.

“Developing the digital economy has become the consensus of most countries, and we are very glad to see many countries in Southeast Asia have launched their digital economy strategies such as Thailand 4.0 and Digital connected Myanmar,” he said.

Wu considers ICT as a high-potential sector and foundation of the economy. According to Huawei GCI, every additional US$1 of ICT Infrastructure investment could bring a return of $3 in gross domestic product in 2016, and the potential return would increase to $5 in 2025.

“ICT drives innovation and transformation in other sectors. It also offers new tools and solutions for responding to social challenges. With it artificial intelligence, ICT allows better communication between people, businesses and governments, and enables real-time agility,” he said.

At the briefing, Wu highlighted four key stages in digital transformation_ building ICT infrastructure, building security for both the physical and digital worlds, developing a supportive environment for industries to go digital, and enabling broader information sharing and processing to help cities and governments better manage the digitisation process.

According to the executive, the firm has been leveraging experiences across borders through close cooperation with Asean countries at each of the four stages.

He said governments should give priority to digital infrastructure, with a focus on broadband and cloud computing, to promote fair competition and inclusive development.

Wu urged to transform traditional infrastructure (such as railways, roads, water, and electricity) into digital one by accelerating industry upgrade.

“With strong government support and policies that enable effective digital transformation, the doorway to the intelligent world is open,” he said.

He pledged to bring the power of digital to every single person and organisation. The firm focuses on ICT infrastructure and smart devices for the development of information, automation, and intelligence technologies and enables partners to grow their content, applications, and cloud with scale, security and reliability.

“We stand at the precipice of the 4th Industrial Revolution, with ICT networks as a foundation and artificial intelligence enabling an intelligent world where all things sense, all things connect, and all things are intelligent. This will create a digital transformation market worth $23 trillion [globally],” he said.

According to Huawei’s Global Industry Vision, the number of personal smart devices will reach 40 billion, 90 per cent of smart device users will have an intelligent personal assistant, and many households will have a robot by 2025.

It expects 100 billion connections will be created around the world, 85 per cent of enterprise applications will be deployed in the cloud, and 86 per cent of global companies will adopt artificial intelligence. Additionally, 180ZB of data will be generated around the world every year, a 20-fold increase compared with today.

At MWC2018, the firm launched over 20 new products, showcased the results of its cooperation with over 300 partners and hosted 5 forums. It also won the “Outstanding Contribution to the Mobile Industry Award” for 2018 by Global System for Mobile Communications.

Talk about 5G’s potential to pave the way to a world of self-driving cars, lightening-fast video downloads and smart cities have dominated the Mobile World Congress for years.

But at the event in Barcelona this year, companies were full of concrete announcements of early versions of 5G uses.

The first commercial 5G roll-outs begin this year and next in the United States, Korea and Japan, and the wireless industry is counting on the new technology to trigger a wave of growth in equipment sales and mobile services.

China’s Huawei unveiled in Barcelona what it said is the world’s first commercial chipset that meet the standards of 5G wireless networks, which are better suited for virtual reality and high definition video.

KT Corp, South Korea’s largest telecoms firm which exhibited several 5G services at the Pyeongchang Winter Games, displayed at the congress what it said was the world’s first 5G tablet.

The telecoms industry only agreed to the first common 5G standards in December and analysts cautioned that the development of the network still has a long way to go.

Much of what is being billed as 5G in fact “resembles more LTE++”, or an improved version of the existing 4G network in use in most developed nations, said Carole Manero, director of studies at IDATE, a French think tank on the digital economy.

“There is a lot of marketing use of 5G,” she added.

Huge investments

The next common 5G standards will only be announced later this year so “what is being proposed now is just a first version, many evolutions will follow, as was the case with 4G,” said BMI Research analyst Dexter Thillien.

Tech firms are spending heavily to develop products that take advantage of the network’s possibilities.

“We are investing heavily in 5G, nearly 600 million dollars per year in research and development,” said Huawei executive director and president of products and solutions Ryan Ding.

Telecoms operators are also investing heavily to develop 5G networks for fear of falling behind their competitors.

5G will account for 14 percent of global wireless connections by 2025, according to GSMA, the global mobile operators association.

Deutsche Telekom CEO Timotheus Hoettges has estimated the cost of providing 5G networks in Europe alone will be EUR300-500 billion ($370-615 billion).

The telecoms industry will invest $275 billion in the United States to develop 5G networks there, Sprint chief executive Marcelo Claure said Monday at the mobile congress in Barcelona.

Europe lagging

While the European Union wants European companies to start offering 5G in 2020, spending to develop the network has been lower than in Asia or the United States.

“The timescales vary widely on a country by country basis but the USA and China are the most likely winners to be the first” in 5G deployment, Nokia chief executive Rajeev Suri said on Sunday.

He said he still believed some European operators would start to move up to 5G next year.

In Europe telecoms firms are focusing their 5G efforts on business uses instead of by the general public as in other regions.

European telecom operators are more cautious because the move to 4G by consumers was lower in Europe than elsewhere, said Thillien of BMI Research.

“European operators know that demand will be low by the public. The y were burned by 4G and see that European consumers are more sceptical,” he added.