Connected personal computers and meta-verse applications will overtake smartphones in the future, Cristiano Amon, Chief Executive Officer of Qualcomm said at the Mobile World Congress Barcelona 2022. 

“There are so many industries that are starting and so many that are being transformed, to give you an example, what we learnt from the pandemic is the role of productivity is changing, especially when we look at the need for innovators to work from anywhere….that is fundamentally changing our understanding of what a personal computer is,” said Amon. 

“The number one application on computers now is telecommunication, in terms of collaboration whether it be Microsoft Teams or Zooms,” he said

For Amon these are clear indicators of the massive business opportunity of technological innovations such as connected computers.

Regarding Metaverse, another topic that is taking the tech industry by the storm, Amon said that Qualcomm is bullish on the opportunity, investing heavily in R&D. 

“If I were to make a prediction this (metaverse) could be as big as smartphones, especially the glasses that we all can wear in companion to the smartphone and eventually ….it could be a replacement of the smartphone that is a big opportunity” he said.

Regarding lessons from the ongoing chip shortage Amon had the following comments.

“The first thing we all learned is that semiconductors are important, and it is a testimony about how important and essential semiconductors have become for the future of economies in every country and across every industry. The supply chain crisis brought a new sense of awareness and focus which we applaud of building a resilient and geographically diverse supply chain.”

“The reality is that while the pandemic aggravated the supply chain issue…..We need to invest in a much larger capacity to manufacture semiconductors because digital transformation is real. Every single industry is being impacted; consumption of semiconductor opportunities has increased,” he said