Well, the new thing is of course that we have SMBs, we have enterprises, we have hospitals, we have manufacturing. All of them are now going for 5G. If you think about all the AI applications in your smartphones moving into glasses, AI-based assistant in your glasses, all of that will put new requirements onto the network. India has taken some really important decisions actually not just now but over the last period which has enabled this fantastic rollout of 5G, the fastest rollout in the world. A foresighted government that is seeing what's around the corner and making sure there is enough licensed spectrum available. We have been fortunate to serve India and be in India since 1903. We have also expanded part of the portfolio very much in what we're doing in Bangalore, in Chennai, here in sort of close by in Gurgaon.
Hi, I'm Danish from Money Control and we have Erik Ekudden joining us for the Money Control podcast. He's the CTO of Swedish telecom gear maker Ericsson. Welcome to the podcast, Erik.
Well, thanks for having me, Danish.
So we are attending, we have met in the past covering — I covered Mobile World Congress India Mobile Congress since last 9 years. We always discuss Indian telecom industry, global telecom industry and the advancements. Now that you have joined India Mobile Congress this year, what sort of feedback, what is your experience like? You have spoken with a lot of stakeholders. What change do you see in the Indian market now?
I think it's a good starting point. The energy that we see now in IMC25, it's just bustling everywhere. I have to say I saw a little bit of that same feeling already last year because I think India has now one of the world's strongest 5G networks and of course that brings the industry to a new point. Then it's not about deployment as such. It's much more about what you can do with the technology, what 5G can enable in not just consumers but enterprise space, and I think that is really the takeaway for the whole industry. There are those front-running markets where 5G has started to be leveraged to its full extent, and that creates sort of opportunities. We talked about the growth opportunities that come with that. That's what I see, and that doesn't mean that of course everything is done because we still have some more rollout. We still have some more upgrades of networks, but in a way we have reached almost this pivoting point where we're moving into the second wave of 5G and of the whole mobile industry.
Right, right, right. During the speeches and during the roundtables, Indian government officials and the minister, even Prime Minister Modi talked about 6G and what India is doing. And what is the aspiration when it comes to 6G, like giving our feedback into the 3GPP standard because India wants our needs to be included in the standard. So how do you see India's role so far? Do you think this is the right strategy to start early and have a say in terms of development of the new standard in the telecom industry?
I think so. I think having a strong view which is long-term because telecom is an industry that continues evolving but it's a long-term investment and digital infrastructure is critical infrastructure. So I of course see all the reasons to be early or to be leading and driving in that. I think there is something really important to be said about the evolution now. That's why I mentioned the second wave or moving into the new way of thinking about mobile systems. It starts with 5G today actually and that will evolve into 6G. And what is really new then? Well, the new thing is of course that we have SMBs, we have enterprises, we have hospitals, we have manufacturing. All of them are now going for 5G and a resilient cloud infrastructure as their digital infrastructure to build applications on, AI applications or smartphone applications. All of that happens when you have a strong 5G network. Then you're moving into the second phase and that's where 6G comes in because there are requirements already that we see from these use cases that are not satisfied with 5G, and of course an upgrade then getting into, let's say, a 2030 timeframe that needs to be started planning for right now.
Right, right. At the global scale, global level, AI is getting all the attention. So what is AI doing in the telecom world?
Well, AI is everywhere. Both in terms of AI applications as well as AI in the network. And if you think about all the AI applications in your smartphones, moving into glasses, AI-based assistant in your glasses, all of that will put new requirements onto the network. So it's very important for us to be able to serve our customers, operators primarily, with the best network for AI, and that journey has already started with 5G leading into 5G standalone, network slicing, network APIs to be able to program that network to create a great AI experience.
But then you have the other side of the coin, which is really that already since some years we have built in AI and autonomous functions into the networks, in the radio network, in the core network, in the orchestration, and that of course gives two things. It gives operational efficiency, which I think is what every operator is looking for. But perhaps more importantly, it gives the ability to differentiate services, create tailored user experience for different sectors, for different customer groups, and certainly differences between enterprise and consumers. All of this, when you can do that at scale with the help of AI in the network, autonomous network level four will enable that. I think that's opening up a growth opportunity. So operators have a chance to capture a big part of the new growth here.
Right, right. So beyond AI, which are the futuristic technologies the telecom industry is working on? Players like Ericsson is focused on because a few years back Open RAN, vRAN, they were kind of the buzzword in the industry but that is no longer there. Maybe they have evolved into something else. But from an Ericsson perspective, which are those things that the industry is focused on at the moment?
Yeah. Well, first of all, I think openness is something we're driving very consciously and it will be with us as we move into 5G Advanced and 6G as well. But I think that what you may find sort of new and exciting technologies, we probably have either a showcase here in IMC as a lab or proof of concept, something that's already being researched in our R&D facilities, a lot of it actually together with university partners like the IITs here in India. But what's next? Think about what you can do with a network when you can do this super granular, segmented, differentiated services for any kind of IoT device, any kind of enterprise or consumer service. There's a lot of innovation that happens in that cross area of AI and networks. Another big topic I think is to explore what networks can be used for as sensors. We have this integrated sensing and communication which is something that is being put on the table for 6G standardization, and some things can be done even earlier than that. And then if you look kind of beyond that, it's really about creating the better link between the applications that need capabilities and the networks that provide capabilities. So we are pretty excited about the momentum that is now building when it comes to network APIs, programmability. We have Ericsson, we have the Aduna joint venture together with some of the world's leading CSPs where they can expose their Camara APIs from networks. They get easily consumed over one platform no matter where you are in the world, no matter what kind of application you have and you know how to pay for it. That kind of network API ecosystem is just starting to form and we see a great opportunity in that. And then of course I would be remiss not to mention all the cool stuff that is happening when you fuse for example medical tech with 5G. When you look at — and we have an example actually here about how to innovate on top of the network with ECG sensors that are 5G powered, would democratize healthcare for doctors in a completely different way. So the innovation that is already happening and not the least there in the ecosystem in India, that I think is super exciting.
