Spreading the word on 5G and its potential for businesses
PETALING JAYA: Celcomdigi Bhd says various industries will be able benefit greatly from the deployment of 5G technology, artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud services.
Celcomdigi chief enterprise business officer Afizulazha Abdullah said the interconnection between the three technologies will boost production and efficiency, enabling businesses to make strategic decisions in a much shorter time.
He said that is especially crucial when it comes to large industries such as logistics where large back-end support is required.
Afizulazha said the rollout of 5G technology opens up the potential for businesses to have two-way communication that offers high-speed connections and low latency, paving the way for bigger connections necessary for the Internet of things (IOT).
He was speaking at the first session of Celcomdigi’s three-part MY5G CEO series, held to help more local businesses realise the importance of 5G and its potential.
Amazon Web services (AWS) Asia Pacific chief technologist Olivier Klein added scalability is important for industries as there are many different areas that need to be covered, including devices, sensors and cars.
“Could I do that with Wifi, yes, but it cannot reach as far as 5G,” Klein said.
He said via the deployment of 5G, opportunities to create a smarter environment is evident and 5G will be the handle of that data traffic.
“The idea where we can connect an explosion of devices, and that’s especially interesting in the space of industrial IOT and digital-twin scenarios, in a space where we look into how computer vision can be useful in many other different industries,” he added.
Aside from having the ability to collect and connect data, Klein believes the element of cost-effectiveness and sustainability will also be enhanced through the synergy of cloud services and 5G technology.
For example in the ecommerce space, businesses will be able to forecast the amount of products sent out every day and where the closest fulfilment centre to the end user is, he said.
“This is not only more cost effective, but can also improve your sustainability and reduce unnecessary carbon emissions,” he added.
Ericsson’s president and chief executive officer of Malaysia, sri Lanka and Bangladesh David Hagerbro said the key enabler in attracting foreign investments is digitalisation, which makes industries and enterprises competitive.
He added digital infrastructure which comprises cloud and connectivity is the key to enabling digital transformation.
“Digital transformation and infrastructure is the highway of tomorrow and Malaysia has this foundation in place,” he said.
Ericsson executive strategic adviser to the group chief executive officer, Jan Abrahamsson, called on enterprises to start on their digitalisation journies and continue to progress in order to climb up the complexity chain.
He said in order for a business to start its digitalisation journey, many aspects need to be in place, namely 5G technology, AI, cloud services as well as other technologies required to drive this.
With the network already in place, Abrahamsson believes enterprises in the country should start to work on it now.
“This is not only more cost effective, but can also improve your sustainability and reduce unnecessary carbon emissions.” Olivier Klein