In addition, she also introduced Qualcomm's investment and ecological cooperation in the field of XR, among which the 5G boundless XR event experience program jointly created by Qualcomm and ecological partners will be applied to the enabling "Workbody Universe" project. She said that in the future, Qualcomm will continue to work with partners in various fields including the media industry, continue to promote the integrated development of 5G, XR and other industries, and jointly build a future of intelligent interconnection of everything.
The picture shows Hou Mingjuan, Vice President of Qualcomm, delivering a keynote speech at the 5G and Media Forum at the 5G 2022 World 5G Conference.The following is the transcript of her speech:
Distinguished leaders, distinguished guests, colleagues, good morning. Today, it is a great honor for me to be here again to share with you on behalf of Qualcomm. What Qualcomm is doing as a technology vendor in 5G and XR development. Qualcomm is a technology company headquartered in San Diego, California, USA. Qualcomm was founded in 1985 by seven retired college professors. When the company was founded, the seven founders weren't sure what the company was going to do, but they had a common vision: to develop digital and wireless technologies that would eventually lead to a future where everything would be smart and connected.
In the nearly 40 years since the establishment of Qualcomm, wireless communication has developed to the current fifth generation of wireless communication, namely 5G. Now China is taking the lead in 5G development, with far more base stations and 5G users than any other country in the world -- which is a very proud thing. And I, as an employee of Qualcomm, a mobile technology manufacturer, would like to share with you some of the "back story."
5G was originally called IMT-2020, because the industry expected that 5G technology would be commercially available by 2020. But in 2019, China already made 5G commercially available, a full year ahead of schedule. It is no secret what an achievement it is for such a complex technology to be commercially available a year ahead of schedule. What's more, the industry is now seeing 5G's contribution to the economy beyond the achievements that have driven the development of the technology itself.
The combination of 5G, AI and XR means we will have a more immersive, intelligent and connected future. Especially in the context of media applications, 5G and AI are actually mutually supportive, mutually empowering and mutually stimulating. As for XR(extension), namely AR(augmented reality), VR(virtual reality), MR(mixed reality), is a new generation of mobile computing platform with broad prospects and infinite possibilities, it can connect physical space and digital space together, accelerate the opening of a new era of spatial computing, 5G and AI is a very good application scenario.XR technology has brought great changes to the media, as well as people's life. For 5G technology, both in terms of functionality and application, it continues to expand. From Release 15 to Release 17, each different release implemented a number of technologies specific to that release. So, in fact, our technology is improving every day, and every frozen version that we see or every approved standard that we see is a step in the direction that we can expand our capabilities.
These 5G features will also create new value for the media industry, including innovation in content production, making it easier for service providers to offer new experiences to users, while enabling mobile operators to offer flexible services, and most importantly, expanding users' devices. While smartphones remain the core terminals for people to communicate with each other, In fact, there has been a diversification of terminal types, including watches, headphones, computers, and so on, all connected terminals. It also includes the fourth smart device, which is the next computing platform, the Unbounded XR, and the second smart terminal after the mobile phone, the smart connected car, which is an important node in the future of the intelligent interconnection of everything. The rapid development of 5G and AI complement each other. With the support of the characteristics of 5G technology, the capability of AI has been greatly improved. Thanks to the guarantee of high bandwidth, low delay and high reliability network, large-scale data analysis and machine learning are possible. Meanwhile, advances in AI are making 5G better, including improving its performance level and using resources more efficiently. Therefore, the mutual promotion of the two will lead to some revolutionary technological progress and application innovation, enabling hundreds of millions of terminals to realize intelligent interconnection, the integration of the real world and the digital world, and have a profound impact on our way of production and life.Qualcomm has done a lot of communication with the industry in practice. This year, for example, Qualcomm held the Qualcomm XR Innovation Application Challenge for the fourth year in a row. Every year, hundreds of teams and Qualcomm partners in the XR field participate in the competition, and a great deal of innovation is generated through the competition. For example, the winning team in last year's competition demonstrated some examples of VR/XR applications that enable virtual presence in the medical field. With the ability of VR/XR, people feel as if they are in the operating room, and can see many details when the doctor performs the operation on the patient. Compared with the cases of previous years, this case has made great progress in practical application. In the past few years, medical students could learn knowledge such as the characteristics of stroke patients after wearing VR glasses, but today's VR application has taken a big step forward, enabling a newly enrolled medical student to wear VR glasses, as if he were in a very complicated surgery site, to learn and practice on the spot. Therefore, innovation in the field of VR/XR has made a great contribution to the training of medical students. In addition, the combination of 5G and AI will have an important impact on daily life experiences from a whole new dimension. For example, ordinary people are often at a loss when their car breaks down. But now with the help of AR/VR and other technologies, ordinary people can also become experts in car repair: when people wear AR glasses, as if the professional service staff of 4S shop came to the side to answer questions and problems, AR glasses can help automobile experts to see the problems or faults of cars "with their own eyes", better help people to solve the problems, and provide solutions that ordinary people can learn to operate. We see that with the help of these technologies, people's overall quality of life and even the efficiency of society have been greatly improved.
For another example, car driving is a daily scene in people's life. With the support of 5G and AI and other technical capabilities, the camera in the car can monitor and analyze the driver's facial expression, including whether he is tired, how he is feeling and so on. The application of technology can not only ensure the safety of driving, but also mobilize the emotions of drivers and make them more focused on driving. These are examples of how 5G and AI will change people's lives in the future.
The creativity of one manufacturer may be limited, but the vast number of application service developers have endless creativity, many of which are beyond the imagination of a single company. Therefore, on the basis of the core underlying technical capabilities provided by Qualcomm, we are very happy to see that the industry can continue to produce endless creativity.
For decades, people have been getting information from 2D screens on computers, phones or tablets. Nowadays, media communication has been equipped with many immersive AR scenes, which seem to bring readers to the scene of events. Indeed, computing has evolved into spatial computing with the help of XR technology. That is to say, the screen in the traditional sense has disappeared, and the whole world has become people's "home screen". The whole world is a space where we can read, acquire knowledge, or directly make changes to the society and environment, and this transformation has just begun.
In this transformation process, the concept of metacomes rose rapidly. We think of the metaverse as the "space Internet," which connects the real and virtual worlds and creates a personalized digital experience in which people and everything can communicate and interact seamlessly. Although the concept of metacomes has only become popular in recent years, Qualcomm's investment in XR technologies, including AR, VR, and MR, began more than a decade ago - virtually every technological advance is based on years of investment. It has been three years since 5G was officially commercialized in China in 2019. The vast majority of industry colleagues, including Qualcomm, started to invest in 5G research and development more than ten years ago, and the metauniverse is no exception. We have accumulated many years of experience in this field. Many people do not understand the research and development of advanced technologies. As a technology manufacturer, we all know that "G in ten years", and the replacement of each generation takes about ten years, so does the progress of XR technology.
For example, when AR technology was just launched, I even thought that it was impossible to see the relevant information of people or things directly in the real space, but now there are many intelligent terminals to achieve this function. For example, when traveling abroad, it will become common to point a mobile terminal at a sign or menu to see real-time translation, which would have sounded impossible just a few years ago. And technology advances with each passing day, has a very broad prospect.
In the process of technological progress, Qualcomm has always done a good job of supporting the underlying core technology, and has made long-term and substantial investment in the XR field. We have launched two generations of leading XR dedicated chip platform, and a small chip can support many XR devices. In addition, to support innovation in the XR ecosystem, Qualcomm set up a $100 million Snapdragon Universe Fund in March this year to enable developers and businesses of all sizes to create more possibilities. In addition, in order to promote the development of Chinese startups and the progress of the entire industry, Qualcomm has held the Qualcomm XR Innovation Application Challenge for four consecutive years, and announced the establishment of the XR Industrial Investment Alliance in September 2021.
Finally, I'd like to share with you an example of an XR application that we worked with eco-partners on -- Beijing Workers' Stadium. A place that holds so many people's memories is being rebuilt. In July this year, Zhonghe Group, China Mobile and Qualcomm jointly announced that they plan to create a new application scenario of "workbody meta-universe" integrating digital and real sports based on the 5G+XR enabling 5G unbounded XR event experience. That is to say, future sports competitions can be held simultaneously in the meta-universe and reality, so that wonderful events can enter the meta-universe. At the upcoming Beijing Service Trade Fair, we will also demonstrate how the meta-universe can be used to power future sporting events.
< /p>< /p>All things are connected, this is just the beginning. Qualcomm will continue to work with our friends in the industry and the media to build a future where everything is smart and connected.
