Qualcomm’s John Kehrli says, ‘Our vision is to make all devices increasingly intelligent enabling them the ability to perceive their surroundings'

Qualcomm’s John Kehrli says, ‘Our vision is to make all devices increasingly intelligent enabling them the ability to perceive their surroundings
John Kehrli, Qualcomm's Senior Director of Product Management, discusses his illustrious professional career and Qualcomm's ongoing efforts to introduce AI across many product lines and technologies. Read on to know his insightful thoughts on MLPerf benchmarks, Edge AI and his advice to young minds hoping to pursue a successful career in AI and Cloud computing landscape.

It is essential to deeply appreciate the challenges your customers and the market are facing to develop comprehensive solutions that address those needs and lead the industry.


MEDIA 7: You have an astounding experience of over two decades with industry pioneers like Intel and Qualcomm. What has been the driving force behind your remarkable career?
JOHN KEHRLI:
I think my success can be attributed to embracing challenging and diverse positions over my 20+ year career both at Intel and Qualcomm. This unique experience has enabled me to develop a strong foundation taking on challenging leadership positions that ranged from sales, business development, product management and many others.

The diversity of perspectives I obtained from these experiences have provided a solid footing to address the immense, unprecedented challenges of today’s marketplace. Although recently I have focused on product management roles, this insatiable desire to learn and expand my skillsets have not wavered as demonstrated when I transitioned a few years ago from the premium-tier mobile market to AI take my next leadership position.

From my perspective, it is easy to fall into the trap of complacency and continue building a specific set of skills that are attractive to many employers, but adaptability with a broad range of perspectives empowers the most successful leaders. For me, I have constantly challenged myself to grow each day in every position, and I recommend others to do the same to become the next generation of leaders in our industry.


M7: How is Qualcomm redefining the customer experience for its modern users with the help of AI?
JK:
Great question.I believe the unique and differentiated experience Qualcomm is bringing to customers is around the concept of distributed intelligence. Our vision is to make all devices increasingly intelligent enabling them the ability to perceive their surroundings. Driving this vision, Qualcomm has been building key technologies to take this from concept to reality. We envision this intelligence permeating through every part of the network from the edge to the cloud. Through the use of our key technologies, we are supporting use cases such as real time translation, superior contextual awareness with advanced audio and sensor technology, enhanced camera use cases and much more.

This means Qualcomm is bringing AI to multiple product lines and technologies and whether that AI experience is conducted on-device or in the cloud, it is transparent to the customer because of the 5G connection. That transparency is bringing together new and exciting use-cases to customers by bringing the cloud capability closer to devices at the edge of the network. AI is already pervasive in almost everything we do and the seamless experience from the mobile devices to the data center is already facilitating a new host of experiences brought to you by Qualcomm.

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AI models are growing tremendously in size, and thus we need increasingly complex hardware and software solutions to address those inference needs in the most efficient way possible.



M7: What are the challenges that you face regarding handling and maintaining highly developed technologies such as Edge AI and IoT AI at Qualcomm?
JK:
Another great question. Edge AI appliance market is such a greenfield opportunity with a plethora of potential use-cases that it is often difficult to address all the opportunities today and on the horizon. I think this is a unique case where the capabilities of AI have opened so many interesting applications that it is difficult to prioritize the opportunities with the highest potential. Regardless, one of the areas we decided to focus on is the Edge Appliance market specifically around vision-based applications. Personally, this is an area I’m particularly excited about due to all the benefits to society that I see on the horizon ranging from public safety to healthcare.

Another challenge I see is around the growing size and complexity of neural networks, especially around language processing and computer vision. These AI models are growing tremendously in size, and thus we need increasingly complex hardware and software solutions to address those inference needs in the most efficient way possible. Another challenge I see is around the safety and security of AI which we are helping address today with some of our leading customers specifically around preventing unauthorized access to critical data. I believe this will continue to be a growing focus with advanced security techniques to ensure sensitive data is protected.


M7: Qualcomm recently released MLPerf benchmarks for image and language processing that surprised a lot of industry watchers. Can you please tell our readers a bit more about this amazing achievement?
JK:
  Absolutely! We recently completed our second MLPerf submission and we are very proud of our results. We completed 82 submissions this cycle from vision-based models, including ResNet50 and Resnet34-SSD, to natural language (NLP) models all showcasing our industry-leading performance-per-watt both on the Edge and Datacenter across a vast range of platforms. Moreover, we demonstrated how that competitive advantage scales at the server and rack level with our best-in-class peak performance with our 16-card, 2U dense server submission.

While I am excited to hear our results caught the industry’s attention (as your question indicates), I think this is only the start of what is to come from Qualcomm. Our Cloud AI 100 solution leverages our mobile heritage of low-power processing, and our differentiated approach to the AI market enables us to address the most pressing challenges of customers. Our focus around our MLPerf efforts continue to align our submissions with the needs of our customers, and we are pleased to see this crucial benchmark not only around peak performance but also performance in relation to power given this is the metric the industry is focused on.

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I encourage young people to also balance their skillsets with an equal focus on ensuring ethical and fair implementation of AI to ensure it benefits the greater good of society.



M7: What do you think is essential to stay competitive in a market that is going through constant digitalization?
JK:
I think it really comes down to having a great pulse on the market and truly understanding the demands your customers are facing. As any great product manager will tell you, it is essential to deeply appreciate the challenges your customers and the market are facing to develop comprehensive solutions that address those needs and lead the industry. 

For the AI Inference market, that is precisely what we did from the onset leveraging our low-power expertise at Qualcomm combined with 15 years of AI technology with commercially proven IP and end products. This focus has allowed us to bring to market an industry-changing solution for customers who are trying to balance increasing AI workloads with opposing forces around lower power, operational cost and environmental or carbon footprint initiatives.


M7: This is the last question but it is an important one for our readers. Knowing what you know now, what advice would you give to the young people who are aspiring to pursue a successful career in AI and Cloud computing landscape?
JK:
For a young student or professional looking to enter the AI industry, I believe having a strong software background is crucial. From mastering different programming languages like Python to understanding different tools and frameworks to develop those AI models including Pytorch or Tensorflow, having a strong software background is crucial. Over the last few years focusing on this industry, I have found one thing is for certain – the models will only continue growing in size and complexity, so ensuring you have the technical acumen to be successful to help address those growing needs and challenges is imperative. Beyond technical acumen, I encourage young people to also balance those skillsets with an equal focus on ensuring ethical and fair implementation of AI to ensure it benefits the greater good of society.

ABOUT QUALCOMM

Qualcomm is the world’s leading wireless technology innovator and the driving force behind the development, launch, and expansion of 5G. When they connected the phone to the internet, the mobile revolution was born. Today, their foundational technologies enable the mobile ecosystem and are found in every 3G, 4G and 5G smartphone. They bring the benefits of mobile to new industries, including automotive, the internet of things, and computing, and are leading the way to a world where everything and everyone can communicate and interact seamlessly. Qualcomm Incorporated includes their licensing business, QTL, and the vast majority of our patent portfolio. Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., a subsidiary of Qualcomm Incorporated, operates, along with its subsidiaries, substantially all of their engineering, research and development functions, and substantially all of their products and services businesses, including their QCT semiconductor business.

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PR Newswire | January 25, 2024

Cato Networks, the leader in SASE, announced the expansion of the Cato SASE Cloud platform into threat detection and incident response with Cato XDR, the world's first SASE-based, extended detection and response (XDR) solution. Available immediately, Cato XDR utilizes the functional and operational capabilities of the Cato SASE Cloud to overcome the protracted deployment times, limited data quality, and inadequate investigation and response experience too often associated with legacy XDR solutions. Cato also introduced Cato EPP, the first SASE-managed endpoint protection platform (EPP/EDR). Together, Cato XDR and Cato EPP mark the first expansion beyond the original SASE scope pioneered by Cato in 2016 and defined by industry analysts in 2019. SASE's security capabilities encompassed threat prevention and data protection in a common, easy-to-manage, and easy-to-adopt global platform. With today's announcement, Cato is expanding SASE into threat detection, incident response, and endpoint protection without compromising on the architectural elegance captured by the original SASE definition. "Cato SASE continues to be the antidote to security complexity," says Shlomo Kramer, CEO and co-founder of Cato Networks. "Today, we extend our one-of-a-kind SASE platform beyond threat prevention and into threat detection and response. Only Cato and our simple, automated, and elegant platform can streamline security this way." An early adopter of Cato XDR is Redner's Markets, an employee-owned supermarket chain headquartered in Reading, Pennsylvania, with 75 locations. Redner's Markets' vice president of IT and Infrastructure, Nick Hidalgo, said, "The Cato platform gave us better visibility, saved time on incident response, resolved application issues, and improved network performance ten-fold." (Read more about Redner's Markets and Cato in this blog. "The convergence of XDR and EPP into SASE is not just another product; it's a game-changer for the industry," said Art Nichols, CTO of Windstream Enterprise, a Cato partner. "The innovative integration of these capabilities brings together advanced threat detection, response capabilities, and endpoint security within a unified, cloud-native architecture—revolutionizing the way enterprises protect their networks and data against increasingly sophisticated cyber threats." (Read more about what Cato partners are saying about today's news in this blog.) Platform vs. Product: The Difference Matters Cato XDR takes full advantage of the enormous benefits of the Cato SASE Cloud platform, the first platform built from the ground up to enable enterprises to connect, secure, and manage sites, users, and cloud resources anywhere in the world. Unlike disjointed point solutions and security appliances, Cato capabilities are instantly on, always available at scale, and fully converged, giving IT teams a single, shared context worldwide to understand their networks, prevent threats, and resolve problems. As an autonomous platform, Cato SASE Cloud sustains its evolution, resiliency, optimal performance, and security posture, saving enterprises the operational overhead of maintaining enterprise infrastructure. Enterprises simply subscribe to Cato to meet their business needs. Cato's cloud-native model revolutionized security and networking operations when it was introduced in 2016, a fact validated three years later in 2019 when the Cato approach was formally recognized by the industry as SASE. Breach Times Still Too Long; Limitations of Legacy XDR Cato is again revolutionizing cybersecurity with the first SASE platform to expand into threat detection, empowering security teams to become smarter and remediate incidents faster. The flood of security alerts triggered by network sensors, such as firewalls and IPS, complicates threat identification. In 2023, enterprises required 204 days on average to identify breaches.1 XDR tools help security analysts close this gap by ingesting, correlating, and contextualizing threat intelligence information with the data from native and third-party sensors. However, legacy XDR tools suffer from numerous problems relating to data quality. Sensor deployment extends the time-to-value as IT must not only install the sensors but also develop a baseline of specific organizational activity for accurate assessments. Data quality is also compromised when importing and normalizing third-party sensor data, complicating threat identification and incident response. Security analysts waste time sorting through incident stories to identify the ones most critical for immediate remediation. Once determined, incident remediation is often hampered by missing information, requiring analysts to master and switch between disparate tools. No wonder in 2023, average breach containment required more than two months.1 Cato XDR and Cato EPP Expands the Meaning of SASE Cato XDR addresses legacy XDR's limitations. Instantly activated globally, Cato XDR provides enterprises with immediate insights into threats on their networks. Incident detection is accurate due to Cato's many native sensors – NGFW, advanced threat prevention (IPS, NGAM, and DNS Security), SWG, CASB, DLP, ZTNA, RBI, and now EPP/EDR. Powered by Bitdefender's world-leading malware prevention technology, Cato EPP protects endpoints from attack – in the Cato way. Endpoint threat and user data are stored in the same converged Cato data lake as the rest of the customer's network data, simplifying cross-domain event correlation. The result is incredibly high-quality data that improves the incident identification and remediation process. Cato AI uses the data to accurately identify and rank incidents, empowering analysts to focus critical resources on an organization's most important remediation cases. Cato AI is battle-tested and proven across years of threat hunting and remediation handling by Cato MDR service agents. Remediation times reduce as detected incident stories contain the relevant information for in-depth investigation. Cato's tools sit in the same console as the native engines, enabling security analysts to view everything in one place -- the current security policy and the reviewed story. Finally, incident reporting is simplified with generative AI. Purpose-built for investigations, this natural language engine provides human-readable explanations of incident stories. Analysts save time sharing incident information with other teams and reporting to their managers.

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Network Infrastructure

AireSpring Offers Managed SASE SD-Branch Network Solution

PRWeb | October 25, 2023

AireSpring, a leading global managed services provider and next generation aggregator specializing in Managed IT, Network Services, and Unified Communications, is pleased to announce that it now offers Fortinet's Managed SASE SD-Branch solution comprised of FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) with SD-WAN, FortiAP Secure Wi-Fi Access Points, and FortiSwitch Secure Ethernet Switches. The complete solution now includes fully integrated and Managed Wi-Fi access points and switches for users and infrastructure accessing the internet and cloud applications—a necessity in today's business environment. With built-in security, intelligent application visibility and control, and streamlined compliance, Managed Fortinet SASE SD-Branch protects networks against threats while ensuring productivity and simplified network management. The solution helps solve local connectivity challenges and Wi-Fi interference and congestion issues--all managed under a single pane of glass, thus reducing the strain on IT teams. AireSpring's Managed Fortinet's SD-Branch solution offers a host of features and benefits, including: Cloud-native and cloud-hosted with end-to-end visibility. Unified management to simplify operations and ensure consistent policy enforcement and compliance. Seamless deployment, indoors and outdoors. A user-friendly interface. Simplified electrical power and Wi-Fi setup. Mesh networking to distribute Wi-Fi access across large spaces. Tri-Band Radio Access Point for connectivity using different frequencies. Optional on-site field services for site surveys, installation, and wiring. Optional LTE-based backup Managed Wireless WAN connection. Real-time proactive monitoring and remediation through our 24/7/365 network operations center. We're thrilled to introduce Fortinet's Managed Wi-Fi Access Point and Switch solution to our partners and their customers, stated AireSpring CEO Avi Lonstein. This industry-leading product is indispensable in today's Wi-Fi-reliant environment and, along with our personalized customer service, speaks to AireSpring's commitment to delivering crucial, customized solutions to enterprises with unique business needs. About AireSpring Founded in 2001, family owned and operated AireSpring is an award-winning global managed services provider and next-generation aggregator specializing in Managed IT, Network Services, and Unified Communications, serving thousands of businesses worldwide. AireSpring provides fully managed and connected end-to-end, next-generation solutions and personalized customer service to multi-location enterprise customers. Services include Global Managed SD-WAN and SASE, Managed Security, Unified Communications, SIP Trunking, and Global Business Internet. AireSpring offers its solutions through a diversified network of channel partners that includes technology solutions distributors (TSDs), managed service providers (MSPs), and value-added resellers (VARs). As part of its fully managed solution, AireSpring provides access to hundreds of carriers and cable companies in the US and around the globe, delivering a seamless single-source solution with one bill and one point of contact for AireSpring partners and their customers.

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5G

Wiseband Partners with Rivada for Network Expansion in the Middle East

PR Newswire | January 07, 2024

Rivada Space Networks, a global network company launching a constellation of 600 low-earth-orbit satellites (LEO) to enable secure, global connectivity for governments and enterprises, is partnering with Wiseband, an Emirati satellite services company, to bring secure connectivity solutions to the Middle East region. Based in UAE and operating across the Middle East and Africa, Wiseband provides customized private satellite networking solutions which are designed to meet high-performance and stringent security requirements. The company currently has connectivity projects in UAE, KSA, Kuwait and Egypt. Rivada's global low-latency point-to-point orbital network, the OuterNET™, is a unique next-generation constellation combining inter-satellite laser links with advanced onboard processing to provide unique routing and switching capabilities and create an optical mesh network in space. This orbital network, in which data stays in space from origin to destination, creates an ultra-secure satellite network with pole-to-pole coverage, offering end-to-end latencies lower than terrestrial fiber over similar long distances. And by routing traffic on a physically separated network, it provides a layer of defense for any organization that needs to securely share data between widely distributed sites. For Enterprise and Government communications, Rivada's OuterNET™ will provide an easy-to-deploy network with higher bandwidth and improved security for resilient and more reliable communications services. Rivada Space Networks is showcasing the OuterNET™ at the Middle East Space Conference, in Oman from 8th-10th January. Rivada's CEO Declan Ganley will participate in the panel exploring how new satellite networks can play an essential role in bringing connectivity to the Middle East and the prospects for satellite communications services in the region, including: • How the potential of LEO can be unlocked for data networks and services and the opportunities for new business models and end-user services • An ultra-secure network is the ambition for global enterprise and government communications and the dynamic powers of laser communications are key • Partnering with LEO enables Middle Eastern satellite and telecom operators in search of growth to complement and expand services that cannot be supported by GEO alone Ahmed Hassan, CEO of Wiseband, said: "Wiseband is looking to tap onto Rivada Space Networks' highly secure point-to-point secure communications network to provide advanced and customizable secure solutions to our existing enterprise customers and to develop the emerging markets in Middle East. The OuterNET™ is a fully interconnected orbital network which effectively serves as a private network in space, capable of routing traffic at gigabit speeds from one satellite to another with no need for a gateway on earth. We see this as the key infrastructure for the development of the enterprise and government sectors in the Middle East and beyond." Declan Ganley, CEO of Rivada Space Networks, said: "We are delighted to be partnering with Wiseband based on their long history and expertise in serving the telecoms sector in Middle East region. Rivada'sOuterNET™ is what data communications has been waiting for – a game-changing constellation that re-defines connectivity in terms of security, latency, capacity, efficiency, and coverage. As a completely new type of LEO constellation, the OuterNET™ can provide the Middle East region with a next-generation infrastructure for secure, resilient communications and network expansion." About Rivada Space Networks Rivada Space Networks GmbH is deploying the first true "OuterNET™": a global low latency point-to-point connectivity network of LEO satellites. By connecting its satellites with lasers, Rivada Space Networks will provide resellers and B2B customers with the ability to securely connect any two points on the globe with low latency and high bandwidth. The constellations, comprising 600 low-earth-orbit communications satellites, will represent a fundamental change in the availability of secure, global, end-to-end enterprise-grade connectivity for Telecom, Enterprise, Maritime, Energy and Government Services markets. Rivada Space Networks is a wholly owned subsidiary of Rivada Networks,

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