A Deep-Dive Conversation with Samsung about Powering the Future of Innovation

I had the opportunity to sit down with Jim Elliott, Corporate Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Samsung Semiconductor, Inc. at Samsung Tech Day last October. He runs Memory sales and marketing at Samsung’s North America Semiconductor subsidiary. We talked about how Samsung Semiconductor's technology is ushering the future of artificial intelligence, autonomous driving, super-fast 5G wireless networks, and more. Talking to Jim, it became clear that we're on the cusp of some major technological advancements that will drive forward a new age of innovation. This is similar to what we saw when 4G enabled us to carry devices in our pockets that let us order cars directly to our precise location, stream music and videos no matter where we happen to be, and the ability to post content to social networks for anyone to read or watch. So the question becomes, what's next?

That’s what Jim and I discussed in our sit-down. Click on the video link above to watch the full interview.  From a memory perspective, Samsung had DRAM news, NAND announcements, as well as news around solid state drives - all focused on what the company can do to help its customers continue to innovate. 

One of those improvements pertains to our smartphones that we carry around with us on a daily basis. I asked Jim about the rise in the amount of RAM in our phones, which we’ve seen increase from 2GB all the way up to 8GB and beyond, which is already an incredible amount of power in the palm of our hands. At Samsung’s annual Tech Day, the company announced a 12GB module that will fit into a smartphone, and with that amount of RAM, you’ve now got a phone that’s capable of on-board artificial intelligence. This is Samsung creating and providing the tech for developers to tap into in order to create the next generation of killer apps that’ll do things we haven’t even thought of yet.

What does this mean for you? 

You’ll have artificial intelligence right in the palm of your hand - an AI-capable device that is more powerful than the smartphone of years past, but instead has the speed of a computer, which gives developers the room they need to create high-quality apps. Mobile gaming becomes faster and more responsive, with the power to enable even better graphics. Streaming video steps into the future with 4K Ultra High Definition streams providing even better quality and clarity than the typical 720p streams we see today on mobile.

What’s most impressive, though, is that mobile devices will be powerful enough to do these kinds of things simultaneously, with true multitasking where your device can do multiple things that you want it to do at the same time. 

That’s just one side of the equation, though. The other side is the companies and services that need to send you the data that you are requesting from your devices. Samsung is helping there, too, offering the fastest DRAM, the most amount of stacks, and a breadth of product for building out fast and powerful data centers. Today, what just one second of data looks like is mind-staggering. For example, every second, Netflix streams over 1,000 hours of video content. There’s no denying that streaming is the future delivery method of video and that number is just going to continue to rise. In fact, not only is streaming the future of video, but we’re also seeing more and more streaming for games as well with services like xCloud and Google Stadia. As people stream more and more content, the need for faster data transfer from cloud to mobile increases.

Things like Netflix, Spotify, Instagram, and Uber were made possible by the last major leap in smartphones and connectivity with 4G - Samsung is now at the forefront of enabling 5G to the masses, which will be the start of the next generation mobile frontier. 5G data connections will enable so much more customization, down to the individual level - literally down to 1 meter. This will allow individuals to get the data connection they need at the time that they need it, making our everyday lives easier and smoother.

This is also where we will see how the power of 5G enables a major overhaul of how we move around cities and countries in vehicles. Thanks to innovation at the silicon level, autonomous driving becomes a reality. Not only will vehicles be able to communicate directly with each other on the roads, sharing vital information with one and other, but the power of 5G will allow vehicles to communicate with any pertinent device that has data to share. This can be streetlights, emergency services, traffic data from the cloud, and more.

As you can see, a lot of these future technologies all come down to increased storage density, high bandwidth storage speeds, and a generational leap in mobile data connection throughput - all things that Samsung is laser-focused on. In a way, it feels like the future that we’d been imagining for the last couple of years is finally here. Check out the embedded video (above) featuring our chat with Samsung’s Jim Elliott for all the details!