Organizations generally manufacture and invest in new technologies to make life better. X-ray technology and vaccines changed medicine, airplanes and automobiles brought the world much closer, and computers changed the way we work and play.

With the modern cloud landscape nearing a point of saturation in terms of bandwidth, 5G combined with edge computing and AI looks to further expand the realm of possibilities for a multitude of industries, enterprises and niches, according to Pete Bernard (pictured), senior director of silicon and telecom, Azure edge devices, and platform and services at Microsoft.

Bernard spoke with John Furrier, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, during the recent Mobile World Congress event. They discussed 5G, its numerous application scenarios, and the growing pains being overcome by enterprise solution providers like Azure Percept. (* Disclosure below.)

More possibilities, more problems

From retail and service delivery, solutions, healthcare and consumer technology, there seem to be no limits to the areas that’ll be touched by this emerging breakthrough tech.

“We have tons of commercial customers that are trying to solve really difficult problems using AI and edge and 5G now,” Bernard said. “So the demand is tremendous and the technology has really advanced quite a bit.”

Bernard’s team is specifically focused on the intersection of 5G edge and AI and how it’s bringing together existing credible technology advances and unlocking new scenarios and business models for Microsoft’s customers and partners.

With the rise of any new technology, there’s always a commensurate set of problems that crop up — either in terms of cost, deployment, scalability or accessibility. Foldable smartphones, for example, just began to trickle down into most consumers’ hands after two years of commercial availability, Bernard pointed out.

“It was an infinite set of problems to be solved. And one of the things that we found was that there was actually a lot of friction out there — it’s almost like so many different partners and typologies and ways to put things together. So one of the things that we introduced as part of our Azure portfolio is Azure Percept, which is an end-to-end system for edge AI development and deployment that now works over 5G and LPWA as well,” Bernard stated.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the Mobile World Congress event. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for Mobile World Congress. Neither TelcoDR Inc., the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE