Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1116895
MAY 2019 I PCB007 MAGAZINE 113 Neves: In China, 5G is dominated by just two or three players. For them and their supply chain, it's going to be phenomenal But as far as infrastructure is concerned, it's going to have minimal impact on the overall market on the big picture of things because the supply base is very limited. Matties: It winds up in the consumer market though, doesn't it? Neves: Once the infrastructure is there to be able to use 5G, and that's still a year or two down the road. The infrastructure part is go- ing to be a lot of it, but it's going to be through a few very narrow channels. There are three phone providers in China, and there are three or four main equipment sup- pliers as well as their sup- ply base. They're going to do very well over the next few years because it's an un- believable volume of infra- structure that has to be put in to support this. But I don't think it's going to hit the general market oth- er than some of the material suppliers seeing volumes go through the roof. In general, you're not going to see that widespread benefit from 5G being implemented; only after it's implement- ed does the market takes off. You can take a picture, and it would be published on the I- Connect007 website a little while later. Soon, you're going to have hardware and software vendors saying, "I can upload that immediate- ly." That's the kind of stuff and innovation that is going to happen once you have that ability to transmit that volume of data back and forth so quickly. Then, you have the whole idea of computing switching from local processing to central processing. There's also going to be a regression of all of this stuff where the tablets become more and more powerful. Communication is going to be- come powerful, and all the processing is going to be done somewhere else. Instead of sending to your CPU inside your product, you're going to send it to somebody else's CPU to crunch the stuff and then send it back to you. For com- panies like Amazon who are looking at decen- tralized processing, 5G is going to change their markets substantially. But it's not going to be a good thing for the phone manufacturers, etc., because the need to have the "A52" processor in your iPhone XXI is not going to be there anymore. A lot of the main apps that we use are starting to use more service-based models and to move their processing off of your phone onto their servers on the edge of the internet wherev- er you're at. Matties: Well, it's nice to catch up with you, Bob. Is there any advice that you would give somebody look- ing to do business in China? Neves: As I mentioned earli- er, you can't do it from afar; you have to do it internally. You have to make the com- mitment to physically pick up from where you're at and do business in and from China. There's no easy way to learn; you just have to come and dive in. It's a big change, and it's different than anywhere else in the world. But if you're going to be success- ful here, that's what it takes. If you hope to bring a Western philosophy, then you have to bring Western people to instill that philosophy because that's not natural here and would be a struggle. Even after 15 years, it's still a chal- lenge for me to find that middle ground. Matties: Right, what you know doesn't nec- essarily work everywhere. Thank you very much, sir. Neves: It's always a pleasure. PCB007 Bob Neves