neXt Curve Insights - March 2025
Leonard Lee
Tech Industry Advisor & Realist dedicated to making you constructively uncomfortable. Ring the bell 🔔 and subscribe to next-curve.com for the tech and industry insights that matter!
Welcome to the March 2025 edition of neXt Curve Insights. This monthly newsletter is a compilation of articles, media, and news that have been curated by the research team at neXt Curve with contributions from partner analysts as well as business and technology leaders.
The goal of neXt Curve Insights is to provide our readers with a regular cadence of coverage of the industry and tech trends and events that matter with the intent of fostering constructive discussion and debate on the future of technology, innovation, and the continuous reinvention of enterprise, industry, society, and our lives.
I hope that you find this edition informative and inspiring.
Leonard Lee, Executive Analyst of neXt Curve
NOTICE:
neXt Curve analysis content is only available in the full version of the newsletter that can be found on the neXt Curve research portal at www.next-curve.com.
We appreciate your readership. Please contact Leonard Lee, Executive Analyst of neXt Curve for any advisory needs.
Clients, please contact your analyst relations team for inquiries.
Top Posts
Check out the top social media posts on LinkedIn by neXt Curve analysts, associates, and partners. Follow neXt Curve and Leonard Lee on LinkedIn and be part of the conversation. Click on the image to view the post.
Attend the LeadershIP event co-hosted by Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and CSIS Renewing American Innovation on April 1, 2025. If you’re interested in technological leadership, this event offers insights into policy and regulatory trends related to intellectual property rights (IPR) and patent regimes protecting global technologies and standards like 5G/6G and AI.
At MWC 2025 in Barcelona, I had the distinct pleasure of having a one-on-one chat with Ericsson CTO, Erik Ekudden about the state of 5G, network APIs, the Aduna Global API exchange, and the prospects of differentiated connectivity.
Thanks to Erik and Ericsson for inviting me to share in this discussion.
Huge news coming out of Embedded World” 2025 from Qualcomm. Edge Impulse is now part of the Dragonwing family from Cristiano R. Amon , CEO of Qualcomm .
One of my best friends in the industry! Rob Tiffany⚡️ what a ride!
Stopped by a couple of Apple e Stores as I went shopping with the family. Bumped into the new iPhone 16e and got into a few conversations about the Vision Pro.
It was a privilege at NVIDIA GTC 25 to have an opportunity to hear from arguably the most engaging and visionary tech leader of our time, Jensen Huang .
Thanks to my friends at Lenovo for naming their AI agent after me! His name is Lenny. So cool! Congrats to Linda Yao and her team for putting security and responsible AI first.
Not surprised at all by Apple’s delay in some of the more aspirational Apple Intelligence features. Same goes with the Siri revamp which smacks of the smart speaker hype and subsequent voice assistant winter. Not as much a failing but the first of many canaries in the coal mine to succumb to the gas of GenAI limitations.
(Image credit: Apple)
Wow! Qualcomm + Edge Impulse!
Big news coming out of Embedded World 2025 in Nuremberg and pretty much shocked the industrial AI community. Edge Impulse is a pioneer in Tiny ML/Edge AI and should prove to be a big addition to the Dragonwing portfolio of AI tools.
This Sony mobile professional video camera connects via 5G to transmit 4K feeds over an enhanced uplink slice. It’s a pro version of that 5G video uplink device that Peter Linder has been running around with since July of last year.
I’m sorry! Yes, I cried just like I did back in 1989 when Metallica won the first Grammy on behalf of all headbangers around the world! 🤘🤘
Yes, Apple christened the future of media with an almost 30-minute Immersive Media (3D VR180) concert short on the Vision Pro. Amazing! What say you?
This was one of the highlights of MWC 2025. I was invited by Ericsson to have chat with one of the industry’s tech luminaries, Erik Ekudden, CTO of Ericsson. It was great to get the essence of our conversations about the industry, tech leadership, and the reinvention of the network in a 5G era. Erik is a brave man.
reThink Insights
Check out the articles and the research notes that neXt Curve published this month as well as press quotes by the media on topics related to our research agenda.
“FNTV: MWC 2025 Morning Brief – Day 3” (March 5, 2025) by @Stephen M. Saunders MBE, Fierce Network
“Special guest Leonard Lee gives us his rundown from MWC 2025. Oh, and our faithful ad dog Bowie!”
“Alibaba explodes: Is this reasoning really reasonable? Good question” (March 6, 2025) by Matt Hamblen , Fierce Electronics
“Aside from such concerns over bias or privacy, Lee agreed there is still a move to massive commoditization happening in AI supercomputing and all the inference work from cloud to edge that promises to be disruptive. His views are outlined in a recent newsletter.”
“AIOps and Cloud: Transforming Network Management” (March 11, 2025) by NETSCOUT , Fierce Network
“Yeah, I think it’s a rather early days for it, and I think the practices around AIOps are things that are constantly morphing just simply because AI in itself is evolving so quickly, especially with the advent of generative AI and as operators are looking to apply it within the network as well as in their operations.”
“Intel appoints Tan as CEO, restores him to board; stock up 15%” (March 13, 2025) by Matt Hamblen, Fierce Electronics
“There’s lots of excitement with Lip-Bu taking the helm, but what is it that he can do to right the ship that he couldn’t do on the board of Intel?”
“Zayo eyes more AI growth with $4.25B Crown Castle deal” (March 14, 2025) by Masha Abarinova , Fierce Network
“Essentially, the move aligns with the narrative that AI ‘will transition from massive model training [via] multi-site superclusters to what is expected to be a larger inference opportunity,’ he told Fierce, as enterprises and consumers continue to consume AI services.”
“Ericsson, Aduna and the gradual rise of 5G APIs” (March 17, 2025) by Dan Jones , Fierce Network
“‘They have to focus on building liquidity and scale for the high value, easy to do APIs versus the more complex and network capabilities,’ Lee said. “Security and trust are important markets for Aduna to enable for their operator partners.“
“What’s Next for 5G? Reflecting on Fierce Network’s panel session: The Evolution of 5G Advanced: Beyond Connectivity” (March 28, 2025) by Sylwia Kechiche , Opensignal
“On day one of Fierce Networks’ “Exploring Revenue Streams with 5G Networking” event, I had the pleasure of moderating a panel titled “The Evolution of 5G Advanced: Beyond Connectivity.” Together with Michael Irizarry, Ph.D. , EVP & CTO at UScellular , and Leonard Lee, Executive Analyst at neXt Curve, we explored the current state of 5G, the promise of 5G Advanced, and what lies ahead as we move toward 6G.“
Go to our neXt Curve reThink research portal for more content and insights associated with our research agenda.
neXt Curve Monthly Musings
Check out this month’s musings on all things in tech and industry that matter to technology and business leaders by neXt Curve’s Executive Analyst, Leonard Lee.
DeepSeek + Stargate = ?
“The Stargate Project is a new company which intends to invest $500 billion over the next four years building new AI infrastructure for OpenAI in the United States. We will begin deploying $100 billion immediately. This infrastructure will secure American leadership in AI, create hundreds of thousands of American jobs, and generate massive economic benefit for the entire world. This project will not only support the re-industrialization of the United States but also provide a strategic capability to protect the national security of America and its allies.
As part of Stargate, Oracle , NVIDIA, and OpenAI will closely collaborate to build and operate this computing system. This builds on a deep collaboration between OpenAI and NVIDIA going back to 2016 and a newer partnership between OpenAI and Oracle.” – “Announcing The Stargate Project”, January 22, 2025, SoftBank (link)
“The rise of DeepSeek -R1 signifies a transformative shift in AI development, presenting a cost-effective, high-performance alternative to commercial models like OpenAI’s o1. Its open-source nature and robust reasoning capabilities position it as a game-changer for startups, developers and budget-conscious enterprises.
Performance analysis of DeepSeek-R1 indicates a substantial advancement in AI capabilities, delivering not only cost savings but also measurably faster processing (2.4X) and clearer outputs compared to OpenAI’s o1. The model’s combination of speed, efficiency and clarity makes it an ideal choice for production environments and real-time applications.” - "DeepSeek-R1 challenges OpenAI’s o1 with superior processing, cost efficiency" by Mohammed Karimkhan Pathan, February 3, 2025, VentureBeat
The unusual timing of the Qwen 2.5-Max’s release, on the first day of the Lunar New Year when most Chinese people are off work and with their families, points to the pressure Chinese AI startup DeepSeek’s meteoric rise in the past three weeks has placed on not just overseas rivals, but also its domestic competition.” – “Alibaba releases AI model it says surpasses DeepSeek” by Eduardo Baptista , January 29, 2025, Reuters (link)
neXt Curve MUSING
neXt Curve Musings are available in the full version of the report 👉 CLICK HERE!
Apple Intelligence Delay
“Apple’s acknowledgment that AI enhancements to Siri are taking longer than expected has increased concern that the iPhone maker is falling further behind in what is shaping up to be a tectonic shift for the tech industry.
Why it matters: When it announced Apple Intelligence last June, Apple was already trailing major competitors in outlining its AI strategy.
Driving the news: Apple confirmed earlier this month that the enhanced Siri was taking longer than expected, with features that were due imminently now expected to arrive “in the coming year.” – “Delays cast a cloud over Apple Intelligence” by Ina Fried , March 17, 2025, Axios (link)
“Apple has suspended a new artificial intelligence (AI) feature that drew criticism and complaints for making repeated mistakes in its summaries of news headlines.
The tech giant had been facing mounting pressure to withdraw the service, which sent notifications that appeared to come from within news organisations’ apps.” – “Apple suspends error-strewn AI generated news alerts” by Natalie Sherman & Imran Rahman-Jones , January 17, 2025, BBC (link)
neXt Curve MUSING
neXt Curve Musings are available in the full version of the report 👉 CLICK HERE!
Google taps MediaTek for AI hypercomputing
“Google is preparing to partner with Taiwan’s MediaTek on the next version of its AI chips, Tensor Processing Units, that will be made next year, the Information reported on Monday, citing people involved in the project.
However, Google has not cut ties with Broadcom, the chip designer it has worked with exclusively on the AI chips over the past several years, the report said, citing an employee at the San Jose-based company.
Google chose MediaTek partly because the Taiwanese firm has a strong relationship with TSMC and charges Google less per chip compared to Broadcom, the Information report added.” – “Google preparing to partner with Taiwan’s MediaTek on next AI chip, Information reports”, March 17, 2025, Reuters (link)
“Google plans to work with a new firm to help design and produce some of its artificial intelligence chips: MediaTek. Google is preparing to team up with the Taiwanese firm on the next version of the chips, known as Tensor Processing Units, that would be produced next year, according to two people involved in the project.” – “Google Taps MediaTek for Cheaper AI Chips” by Qianer Liu, March 17, 2025, The Information (link)
neXt Curve MUSING
neXt Curve Musings are available in the full version of the report 👉 CLICK HERE!
What will 6G be about?
Lately, there has been a lot of talk about 6G and what it will be about especially in the run up to MWC Barcelona 2025 and the 3GPP Workshop on 6G which took place in Incheon, South Korea a week after. This 3GPP conference has been highly anticipated especially given what can be described as a growing anxiety about the definition and purpose of the next generation mobile technology.
The IMT-2030 usage scenarios are represented in what is dubbed the “Wheel diagram” which builds upon the IMT-2020 “Triangle diagram” that have all become accustomed to. I have to admit, I have struggled with this framing of the vision for 6G.
As I mention in my prior musings about the IMT-2030 Wheel diagram since its introduction, it comes off as nebulous and departure from what I would consider a view on the technical evolution of the next G.
For example:
Recommended by LinkedIn
It begs the question, what will the technical and technological evolution of 6G be? Will we need to reimagine the mobile wireless network as something more than just connectivity? Will it be a cyberphysical infrastructure as neXt Curve suggested in our 2019 Technology Futures study for Ofcom ? (link)
On the other hand, eMBB, URLLC, mMTC,… I get it.
One important aspect that seems to either be missing or too lightly treated in ITM-2030 frameworks is uplink performance for advanced IoT and media applications. Interestingly, in 2020, Huawei included what they call UCBC (Uplink Centric Broadband Communication) in their 5.5G use scenario hexagon. It also included RTBC or (Real-time Broadband Communications) which in concert with UCBC would be at the least super interesting and theoretically game changing.
Another thing that seems to be missing from the IMT-2030 vision is connectivity for new classes of low-power devices or power-efficient devices that take things beyond NB-IoT which has struggled to attain market relevance to date outside of select markets. Or course, this could be an intentional omission given the challenges operators have had to date building compelling IoT businesses.
Finally, one of the biggest challenges for operators has been densification. In the 6G world with likely introduction of higher frequency bands and an inevitable revisiting of mmWave, novel technologies and architectures will be required to deliver 6G class experiences to consumers and enterprises alike especially for uplink.
Maybe the industry needs to introduce the idea of Quality of Coverage which is alluded to by Capabilities of IMT-2030, specifically, coverage, area traffic capacity, user experienced data rate.
Just a thought.
REFERENCES
Media Highlights
This month, neXt Curve participated in the following internally produced and third-party media events. More media content featured by or featuring neXt Curve is available on our reThink YouTube channel and our media center.
Fierce Network TV MWC 2025 Morning Brief - Day 3
Leonard Lee of neXt Curve has a brief chat with Stephen Saunders MBE to discuss key takes and highlights from MWC 2025 the morning of Day 3 in a quick-fire exchange.
Fierce Network TV AIOps & Network Management
Leonard Lee joins, Rick Fullwiler of NETSCOUT, and Amir Rao of Amazon Web Services (AWS) to talk about how AIOps and curated data are revolutionizing network management.
MWC 2025 Recap Dinner with Marc Pous & Earl Lum
Leonard Lee gets together with Earl Lum and Marc Pous over dinner at Fonda Pepa to discuss and recap MWC 2025 Barcelona.
MWC 2025 Recap with Chetan Sharma & Peter Jarich
Leonard Lee hosts a session to recap MWC 2025 with renowned telco industry consultant, Chetan Sharma , and Peter Jarich , head of GSMA Intelligence .
NVIDIA GTC 2025 Recap with Karl, Jim, and Francis
It’s the last day of NVIDIA’s GTC 2025 and Leonard is joined by Jim McGregor and Francis Sideco of TIRIAS Research , and Karl Freund of Cambrian-AI Research for a live recap session upon the conclusion of Quantum Day.
Ericsson Booth at MWC 2025 A chat with Erik Ekudden
Leonard Lee had the distinct privilege to have an open chat with Erik Ekudden, CTO of Ericsson, and the role that 5G SA, 5G-Advanced, differentiated connectivity and network APIs on the present and the future of the telco industry.
Ericsson Booth Tour at MWC 2025 with Oliver Buschmann
Leonard Lee has the opportunity to meet up with Ericsson’s head of strategy, Oliver Buschmann , for an engaging tour of the Ericsson booth at MWC 2025. They start their journey at the Aduna section and explore the vast range of demos and themes top of Ericsson’s mind at MWC 2025.
Event Highlights
This month, neXt Curve participated in the following virtual and in-person industry and technical events. For our full schedule of industry events refer to our event calendar. We also encourage you to follow neXt Curve’s LinkedIn company page.
MWC 2025
Date: March 3 to 6, 2025
Location: Barcelona, Spain
VIEW THE FULL REPORT (Coming Soon)
EVENT SUMMARY & HIGHLIGHTS
In the seven years that neXt Curve has been around, this is the sixth year that we attended Mobile World Congress in person, which is all of them. This year, the event is taking place during a pivotal year with new tech and geopolitical policies with a newly minted second Trump administration.
Once again, Ukraine was the specter that hung over the conference following a contentious meeting that took place in the White House between visiting President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and President Trump. What would be the fall out? This was the predominant question in the mind of seemingly everyone.
This year’s event drew 109,000 attendees, 8,000 more than last year’s event. The energy in the exhibition halls reflected the increased attendance though it did seem that travel and lodging were easier to secure this year than prior years. Those of us who landed in Barcelona early feared that the event might be light. It wasn’t.
Unlike last year, which was themed “Future First” with a heavy slant on Gen-AI infused hyperbole, MWC 2025 had what I thought was a more reasonable message and focus on connectivity, the foundation of the mobile industry. I was hopeful for a more grounded event this year.
“Experience the power of connection”
Again, this year, neXt Curve collaborated with EJL Wireless to cover a wide range of topics and what we see as industry priorities in 2025 and beyond.
Here are the research topics that we delved into at MWC 2025:
G.R.O.W.
Last year, I missed the opening keynote. This year, I carved out time first thing in the morning to tune into the attitude and perspective that GSMA was setting for the event. Out-going GSMA Director General, Mats Granryd set his last agenda and gave his last keynote for Mobile World Congress.
G.R.O.W. was the theme this year, which I thought was an improvement over last year’s “Future First”. What does it stand for? Grow 5G, Revenue, Opportunity, and Spectrum Waves. Priorities presented during the course of the 75-minute opening keynote Industry on more grounded and urgent topic rather than the aspirational and visionary. Surprisingly, there wasn’t the superfluous mentioning of AI that I had expected given the prevailing but peaking GenAI hype.
Themes such as consolidation, regulatory realignment, sharing, and spectrum cost, especially in Europe dominated talking points and sentiment among the keynote speakers who included Marc Murtra Millar , CEO of Telefónica , Vicki Brady , CEO of Telstra , Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman of Bharti Airtel Ltd., Benedicte Schilbred Fasmer , President & CEO of Telenor Group, and Vivek Badrinath , the newly appointed Director General of GSMA .
It is apparent that the mood in China is different. Biao He, President & CEO of China Mobile brought the AI-drenched vision of the present and future of the industry that smacked of “techco” and sovereign AI. The contrast he presented didn’t go unnoticed, at least to me.
Benedicte Schilbred Fasmer, CEO of Telenor closed the opening keynote with the words “trusted connectivity”. Trust, especially in light of global geopolitical tensions was a top subject of concern and discussion at MWC 2025.
neXt Curve MEDIA
COMPANIES ENGAGED
Ericsson, Cisco , Qualcomm, AWS, Lenovo, Nokia , ZTE Corporation , Samsung Networks , Samsung Electronics , Palo Alto Networks , Marvell Technology , T-Mobile , Orange , Verizon , Singtel , Motorola Mobility (a Lenovo Company) , Oracle , Juniper Networks , Hewlett Packard Enterprise , The Things Industries , CAMARA, Dell Technologies , Globalstar , Eseye , NVIDIA, iOPEX Technologies , Intel Corporation , Arm , Red Hat , Ciena , Ribbon Communications , Spirent Communications , SK Telecom , Spectrum Effect , Softbank, AI-RAN Alliance , Shabodi , Google Cloud , Rakuten Symphony , NETSCOUT, HONOR , Xiaomi Technology , Parallel Wireless , BT Group , NTT DOCOMO , McKinsey & Company
NVIDIA GTC 2025
Date: March 17 to 20, 2025
Location: San Jose, CA
VIEW THE FULL REPORT (Coming Soon)
EVENT SUMMARY & HIGHLIGHTS
NVIDIA’s GTC event has become the hottest ticket in the fast-burgeoning universe of AI which has taken off with the injection of ChatGPT to the global public. This year, the event was held at the San Jose Convention Center. Considering how crowded the 2024 event was, many of the prior year attendees speculated that this year’s event might move to Las Vegas.
GTC 2025 drew around 25,000 attendees from around the world. In typical NVIDIA fashion, the event program was packed with session, keynotes, workshops, and labs. Much like last year, there was an oversized emphasis and representation of NVIDIA’s data center business which is largely AI supercomputing, or should we say hypercomputing? Jensen’s more recent talk track pivot toward inference and edge AI had yet to represent itself on the expo floor.
This year, neXt Curve was invited to GTC as part of the analyst program which ended up being a rather dense program that provided the privilege of direct engagement with NVIDIA’s executive leadership team and technology leaders including Jensen Huang himself.
Here are the topics and things that we kept an eye out for at NVIDIA GTC 2025:
Inference and The Edge: The Next Frontier of GenAI
Last year, Jensen teased the industry with the edge introducing robotics and physical AI. He also hinted at the next stage in generative AI beyond the LLM and multimodality. This next stage is the thinking models that leverage long thinking or what is commonly referred to as Chain of Thought (COT) to improve the results of generative models that have and continue to suffer from reliability, consistency, and quality challenges.
While much of the attention of the industry has been on GenAI, in particular the hypercomputing part, the other pillars of NVIDIA’s technology and portfolio are converging on what Jensen has referred to as physical AI. In my view, NVIDIA’s deep legacy in gaming tech, digital/virtual simulation (digital twins) and modeling, and their massively expanding AI portfolio are converging on physical AI and creating compelling channels for end market innovation that transverse the virtual with the physical.
GTC 2025 was a great exhibition of this thesis and increasingly important as the “AI industry” continues its quest to square the ROI equation as massive AI infrastructure investments continue against a backdrop of contentious geopolitics and tech trade, and novel competition and innovation/invention from China.
neXt Curve MEDIA
COMPANIES ENGAGED
NVIDIA, AWS, IBM, Lenovo, Dell Technologies, HPE, Google Cloud, Microsoft, Ericsson, The New Stack , ServiceNow , Supermicro , Micron Technology , ASUS
Upcoming Industry & Media Events
Next month, neXt Curve will participate in the following virtual and in-person industry and technical events. For our full schedule of industry events refer to our event calendar. We also encourage you to follow neXt Curve’s LinkedIn company page.
Events on the neXt Curve’s calendar next month:
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Tech Industry Advisor & Realist dedicated to making you constructively uncomfortable. Ring the bell 🔔 and subscribe to next-curve.com for the tech and industry insights that matter!
1wMy MWC 2025 report is coming very soon. Full version at www.next-curve.com.