It has been said that hyper‐successes often happen in business when three distinct and major inflection points or disruptions coincide. Not just one, not two, but three. With that theory, we can explain the hyper‐success of GSM. First, there was a new global and open standard for mobile communication technology, driving up volumes and allowing for an ecosystem to emerge. Second, deregulation took place, allowing for competition with the incumbent, previously monopolistic operators. Third, electronics had evolved to a point, where mobile devices have become affordable for a bigger mass of the population. And sure enough, mobile telephony proliferated throughout the world and made people's lives more enjoyable, secure, efficient and effective. Obviously, businesses also benefited from the ability of their employees to stay connected with one another and Internet regardless of their location. With the advent of 5G, we have the ingredients for something equally profound to happen. You see, the introduction of 5G as a wireless technology is more or less coinciding with adoption of both cloud computing and Artificial Intelligence (AI)/Machine Learning (ML) by operators. Looking back, we can certainly be satisfied with the improvements that 3G and 4G brought as mobile communication technologies, as well as the new device paradigms, pricing models and business models that were introduced in parallel with them. But 5G can become a much bigger step for the humankind, relatively speaking, than 3G and 4G did at their time of introduction and adoption. With the extreme mobile broadband aspects of 5G, we have so much speed and capacity that it is difficult to see how we could run out of it with applications and use cases known today. With design criterion of one million connected objects per square kilometer, we can say that 5G has been designed for the Internet of Things (IoT) from the outset. It will be more affordable and technically feasible than ever before to embed radio sensors and transceivers in physical objects. With ultra‐reliable low‐latency communication (URLLC) performance criteria and functionalities in 5G, we open a host of new use cases and business potential as we can be certain enough about a reliable and robust connection to a physical object accurately in space and time. In addition to such superior wireless connectivity and capacity, we then have virtually infinite computing capacity thanks to cloud computing. And not just any computing, not linear or simplistically deterministic computing, but rather computing that learns with AI, ML, including deep learning. A self‐improving machine that can collect data and command objects in a wireless manner. Furthermore, a technology called network slicing will allow us to logically segregate different performance sets by using the common cloud infrastructure end‐to‐end, rather than building separate physical networks for separate use cases. It is difficult to see why just about any physical or physical/digital business process could not be automated with such technology. Therefore, we can expect 5G, together with Cloud and AI/ML, to have, relatively speaking, a bigger, more profound impact on enterprise than previous generations of mobile communications have had. For consumers, we are lifting and eradicating many barriers to use mobile technology to its full potential. To put it another way, we are creating ubiquitous embedded computing, not just islands of computing, not just communication networks. We are seamlessly interweaving physical and digital worlds. We will have a perfect, programmable model of the physical world in digital space. Welcome to the 5G future. The authors are deeply involved in the work on 5G – network slicing technology as an example – and are in a prime position to provide valuable first‐hand insights on 5G‐related 3GPP activities and all relevant technical details.

Tommi Uitto

President

Mobile Networks

Nokia