Having participated in the Mobile World Congress that took place from the 28th to the 30th of last month, Supermicro, a global IT solutions vendor headquartered in Silicon Valley, was interviewed by Tara Neal, Executive Editor at The Fast Mode in a brief interview on Supermicro's partnerships and showcases at this year's event. Jeff Sharpe, Director, IoT, 5G Edge Embedded Solutions at Supermicro discussed the turnout and overall experience of the event, the virtual and physical exhibitions and product launches that took place, as well as Supermicro's predicted outlook for 2021 and 2022.
Tara: How does it feel to be back at MWC?
Jeff Sharpe, Director, IoT, 5G Edge Embedded Solutions at SupermicroJeff: While Supermicro did not have a large booth at this year’s show due to COVID concerns, surprisingly Mobile World Congress 2021 seemed to be a great success for our 5G, MEC and IoT programs. Supermicro did have quite a few joint partnerships in attendance and with booths at the Barcelona show. Supermicro and our partners showcased innovative products and solutions based on our core in Open RAN, Edge AI, MEC and Industry 4.0.
Tara: What's your showcase theme this year, and what are the key technologies you will be exhibiting/discussing?
Jeff: Although the show attendance was impacted by travel restrictions, as an overall supporter of GSMA and critical supplier to these industries, we wanted to continue to contribute and drive our involvement and investments to these key technologies that are still being delivered and promoted. A few examples of our GSMA involvement included:
- Private 5G Roundtable discussion with Airbus and GSMA focusing on Enterprise Wireless solutions (Private 5G/LTE and Public Wireless access), regarding the implementation of real Industry 4.0 and manufacturing use cases globally. The discussion was timely as the industry has significant interest in wireless technologies for manufacturing and delivery logistics via Public/Private 5G.
- Industry 4.0 Intel/SMCI/NetApp joint whitepaper with Intel regarding Edge AI applications using Supermicro’s latest edge hardware in extreme manufacturing environments for the automotive industry.
- O-RAN: Many companies such as Parallel Wireless, Telefonica, Mavenir, and others are leading the way for a more open environment for O-RAN based technologies, enabling a broader deployment of our combined technologies into rural, developing, and major urban areas-and they all have announced joint development projects with Supermicro. We are really starting to be seen as a critical player in Open RAN with our customers and joint software partners.
- Next Generation Platforms: Supermicro recently announced our latest platforms based on 3rd GEN Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors (code named Ice Lake). Supermicro provided the first early deployments of network and 5G systems using this latest technology with our Hyper-E and Ultra-E product families.
- GSMA 2021 Live Events highlighted for Supermicro and Industry-leading partner solutions for Open RAN, Smart Cities and Industry 4.0 AI Architectures, throughout the year and prior to the Barcelona event, and can be found on our supermicro.com website.
Tara: What's your outlook for telecoms for the rest of 2021?
Jeff: Supermicro has been investing in key compute, storage, and edge AI solutions with increased investments to our “edge-to-cloud” portfolio enabling a wide-range of solution-based architectures focused on AI inferencing and training, Industry 4.0 at the Edge and cloud, networking functions and 5G RAN and Core platforms.
We’ve been working directly with global operators for both their Network Element and vNF deployments alongside our key Tier I and II partners and customers, and partnering with these global operators to help drive low-latency edge-based services for expanded service capabilities. Our investments in O-RAN, MEC and Core functions enable us to deploy similar high availability (HA) technologies for IoT customers in Retail, Industry 4.0, Oil/Gas/Renewable Energy sectors along with enabling more Intelligent Cities/places with our platforms.
As we enter 2 nd half of 2021 and towards 2022, our focus will continue to drive leading-edge platforms for edge and cloud-based solutions. We see Private 5G entering wider deployment for multiple industries, an increase in AI based modeling and edge inferencing for a wider array of use cases requiring more workloads and horsepower at the edge. Supermicro is dedicated to continuing to lead the way with our key silicon and software partners such as Intel and NVIDIA by introducing best-inclass solutions for the industry.
