From Mobile Devices to the Automotive Industry, Chips Play an Outsized Role — and a Global Chip Shortage is a Very Big Deal

In this episode of the Futurum Tech Webcast, I was joined by my colleague here at Futurum, Olivier Blanchard, for a conversation about chips. We started with a conversation about chips that power mobile devices and took a dive into Olivier’s research on why Honor and Qualcomm’s complete mobile solution makes perfect sense. We discussed: Honor’s move from Huawei; Honor’s partnerships with key chipmakers including AMD, Intel, NVIDIA, Microsoft, Samsung, SK Hynix, Sony, and Qualcomm, and what that likely means; The role we expect Qualcomm will play moving forward in both the budget and mid-market tiers of mobile devices; With chips on our mind, we then segued over to a discussion of news out of Qualcomm’s two-day Automotive Redefined: Technology Showcase 2021 and what we see happening with regard to Qualcomm’s Automotive sector strategy. Olivier walked us through the highlights of Qualcomm’s Automotive Redefined: Technology Showcase 2021 event and the many advancements we’re seeing and will be seeing out of Qualcomm with regard to 4G LTE and 5G building global momentum for connected cars. That was but one tidbit, and this was a comprehensive conversation about the Automotive sector and the exciting things we’re seeing across the board in this industry. If you’re a car person, or if you’re a technology person interested in the Automotive, this is one part of the conversation you won’t want to miss. Lastly, we tackled the reality of a global chip shortage, what’s causing that, and the impact that shortage is having on the automotive industry. In short, a global pandemic resulted in a surge of consumer desire for smartphones, gaming devices, TVs, and computers, causing chips to largely be gobbled up to serve the consumer sector. The automotive industry was pinched, and their supply chain issues as it related to chip production has become a very big problem. During the course of the last six to 9 months, the semiconductor industry has not been able to scale up as quickly as needed to meet the demand in the automotive sector. This is a nice end to an interesting conversation about the semiconductor industry and how chips play an outsized role, in everything from mobile devices to the Automotive industry — and a global chip shortage is a very big deal — especially for the automotive supply chain. For a nice read on that, by the way, check out this article from Financial Times: Global Chip Shortage Pus Car Supply Chain Under the Microscope.