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In this episode, Leonard Lee, Executive Analyst at neXt Curve, and special guest, Sebastian Barros, managing director at Circle, former-Ericsson, and former-Google telco leader, tackle some of the top questions of the telco industry for 2026.

• Where is Telco going in 2026?
• What is 6G and what should it be about?
• Why will GenAI matter in telco and how? What about AI?

Sebastian is one of the bright thought leaders in the telco industry who has and continues to generously shared his insights and analysis at an amazingly prolific level. It was a pleasure to have him on the reThink Podcast to have an unscripted, honest discussion of the state and direction of the telco industry faced with AI hype, hope, prospect for disruption, and opportunity. How much of each will we see in 2026 and beyond, and when?

Leonard and Sebastian unpack the following:
💥 What will the role of the GPU be in the RAN?
💥 Is Open RAN dead, or does it have some life left in it?
💥 What is AI-RAN, and what is its value proposition?
💥 The reinvention of the telco and the telco business model - Telco Neocloud
💥 Addressing the telco industry stagnancy and 5G monetization gap
💥 Was telco and ecosystem readiness the thing that made 5G disappoint?
💥 Will 6G need solution-oriented thinking to be successful?
💥 Does the industry know what innovating on 5G looks like? What about 6G?
💥 How will the volatile geopolitical picture and outlook impact 6G?
💥 Will 6G be able to sustain 5G's greatest success?
💥 5G happiness is all about timing!
💥 Massive AI investments in telco will need to show ROI this year!
💥 Agentic AI will be the big focus and the big AI exploration of the year!
💥 2026 will be the year of the great AI unlearning!

Hit Leonard and Sebastian up on LinkedIn and take part in their industry and tech insights.

Check out Sebastian on LinkedIn and his Substack at https://sebastianbarros.substack.com.

Please subscribe to our podcast which will be featured on the neXt Curve YouTube Channel. Check out the audio version on BuzzSprout or find us on your favorite Podcast platform.

Also, subscribe to the neXt Curve research portal at www.next-curve.com and our Substack (https://substack.com/@nextcurve) for the tech and industry insights that matter.

NOTE: The transcript is AI-generated and will contain errors.

DISCLAIMER: This podcast is for informational purposes only.

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Agentic AI has been a hot topic since the beginning of 2025 fueled by the promise of autonomous automation of operations and business for all industries. Yet, much like generative AI overall, agentic AI solutions have turned out to more challenging than anticipated and forecasted. What's the deal?

Join Leonard Lee, Executive Analyst, neXt Curve, as he shares his insights into the impact of Agentic AI for manufacturing and industrial applications.

Leonard will be expanding on this topic at MD&M West in Anaheim, CA on Feb 3rd. For this broadcast, he will be joined by Industry 4.0 Club Co-Founder Tim Stuart and CEO Mike Ungar.

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Leonard is joined by Anurag Agrawal of Techaisle and Prakash Sangam of Tantra Analyst to discuss the highlights of CES 2026, the Mecca of Tech, and Tech World 2026, Lenovo’s marquee event and showcase, which took place at The Sphere.

Unsurprisingly, AI continues to be the centerpiece of keynote conversation. The AI flavor of this year’s event was physical AI, teed up as agentic AI continues to search for footing.
The trio cover the things that mattered from silicon to device hitting the topics of AI PC, automotive tech, private hybrid AI, humanoid robotics, the NPU, the perception edge, and more.

Outline:

Hit Leonard, Prakash, and Anurag up on LinkedIn and take part in their industry and tech insights.

Check out Anurag and his research at Techaisle at www.techaisle.com.
Check out Prakash and his research at Tantra Analyst at www.tantraanalyst.com

Please subscribe to our podcast which will be featured on the neXt Curve YouTube Channel. Check out the audio version on BuzzSprout or find us on your favorite Podcast platform.

Also, subscribe to the neXt Curve research portal at www.next-curve.com and our Substack (https://substack.com/@nextcurve) for the tech and industry insights that matter.

NOTE: The transcript is AI-generated and will contain errors.
DISCLAIMER: This program is for informational purposes only.

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Silicon Futures is a neXt Curve reThink Podcast series focused on AI and semiconductor tech and the industry topics that matter.

In this mega-catchup recap episode, Leonard and Karl talk about some of the top headlines of December 2025.

Topics that mattered in the AI and semiconductor universe:

🔥 Kicking off the agenda for Silicon Futures December 2025 (0:32)
🔥 NVIDIA acquihires and licenses IP from Groq for $20 billion! (2:21)
🔥 No quantum assets for NVIDIA in 2025.... why? (6:02)
🔥 NVIDIA seems to be diversifying their IP & architecture portfolio in 2025 (7:16)
🔥 NVIDIA's diffusion plays in 2025 to tap the custom AI infra market (9:29)
🔥 AWS launches Trainium3 instances & tees up Trainium4 (12:55)
🔥 Shifting competitive & technological landscapes impact "AI leadership" (16:11)
🔥 Marvell acquires Celestial AI for optical scale-up IP & advanced interconnect (21:30)
🔥 Karl's 10 AI and semiconductor industry predictions for 2026! (23:31)
🔥 Leonard's AI and semiconductor industry predictions for 2026! (37:32)
🔥 Wrap up (41:16)

Hit Leonard, Karl, and Jim up on LinkedIn and take part in their industry and tech insights.

Check out Jim and his research at Tirias Research at www.tiriasresearch.com.
Check out Karl and his research at Cambrian AI Research LLC at www.cambrian-ai.com. Check out Karl's Substack at: https://substack.com/@karlfreund429026

Please subscribe to our podcast which will be featured on the neXt Curve YouTube Channel. Check out the audio version on BuzzSprout or find us on your favorite Podcast platform.

Also, subscribe to the neXt Curve research portal at www.next-curve.com and our Substack (https://substack.com/@nextcurve) for the tech and industry insights that matter.

NOTE: The transcript is AI-generated and will contain errors.

DISCLAIMER: This podcast is for informational purposes only.

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neXt Curve's reThink Podcast focuses on tech and the industry topics that matter.

In this episode, Leonard Lee of neXt Curve is joined by renowned cloud computing thought leader, David Linthicum of Linthicum Research, to talk about the state of cloud and AI along with a recap of our time at re:Invent 2025.

They discuss the current state of cloud computing, particularly focusing on the widespread shift towards AI and agentic AI. David shares his experiences and thoughts on the significant focus on AI infrastructure witnessed at AWS re:Invent 2025. Both Leonard and David delve into the potential pitfalls of overemphasizing AI while neglecting core cloud services, stressing the importance of a balanced approach. They also explore the innovations and the lack thereof in the current cloud landscape and provide insights for what they expect and recommend for AWS in 2026.

Topics that mattered:

🔥 00:48 Background and Experience of David Linthicum
🔥 01:20 Consulting and Career Insights
🔥 03:44 Discussion on Cloud and AI Trends
🔥 04:56 Challenges and Realities of AI Adoption
🔥 14:52 Advice for Enterprises on AI Strategy
🔥 17:54 The Hype of Technology Providers
🔥 18:58 Reinventing Thought Leadership
🔥 19:20 AWS and the AI Overcorrection
🔥 19:47 Innovation and Core Business Focus
🔥 21:42 Missed Opportunities and Future Directions
🔥 24:06 AWS's Industrial Footprint
🔥 27:47 Recommendations for AWS 2026
🔥 33:00 Technical Debt and Modernization

Hit Leonard, David up on LinkedIn and take part in their industry and tech insights.

Check out David Linthicum at www.davidlinthicum.com.

Please subscribe to our podcast which will be featured on the neXt Curve YouTube Channel. Check out the audio version on BuzzSprout or find us on your favorite Podcast platform.

Also, subscribe to the neXt Curve research portal at www.next-curve.com and our Substack (https://substack.com/@nextcurve) for the tech and industry insights that matter.

NOTE: The transcript is AI-generated and will contain errors.

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Silicon Futures is a neXt Curve reThink Podcast series focused on AI and semiconductor tech and the industry topics that matter.

In this mega catch-up recap episode, Leonard, Karl and Jim talk about some of the top headlines from September through November of 2025.

00:31 Industry Updates and Conferences
03:14 Quantum Computing Insights
07:08 AI and Data Center Evolution
10:14 Google's TPU Strategy
19:39 Intel's Manufacturing Advances
22:13 High NA Integration in Manufacturing
22:57 Intel's Strategic Decisions and 6G
24:05 US Manufacturing Capacity and Challenges
26:58 Nvidia's AI Roadmap and Market Position
29:26 Nvidia's Investment in Synopsys
31:16 Nokia and Nvidia's 6G Partnership
35:51 Google's AI Advancements with TPU
42:51 Qualcomm's AI Infrastructure
43:46 Micron's Memory Innovations

Hit Leonard, Karl, and Jim up on LinkedIn and take part in their industry and tech insights.

Check out Jim and his research at Tirias Research at www.tiriasresearch.com.
Check out Karl and his research at Cambrian AI Research LLC at www.cambrian-ai.com. Check out Karl's Substack at: https://substack.com/@karlfreund429026

Please subscribe to our podcast which will be featured on the neXt Curve YouTube Channel. Check out the audio version on BuzzSprout or find us on your favorite Podcast platform.

Also, subscribe to the neXt Curve research portal at www.next-curve.com and our Substack (https://substack.com/@nextcurve) for the tech and industry insights that matter.

NOTE: The transcript is AI-generated and will contain errors.

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It’s time for the biggest cloud and AI event on the planet! AWS re:Invent 2025 is about to kick off.

Leonard Lee of neXt Curve caught up with Jo Peterson, Principal Analyst at ClearTech Research, to share our predictions for the present and future of cloud and AI computing just before we stepped into the analyst pre-brief a day before AWS CEO Matt Garman’s keynote.

Last year, Matt Garman led with cloud and security. Will AWS hold to the foundation of their business in a year of subdued enterprise AI adoption, or will they go all in on AI, AI, AI?

Hit Leonard and Jo up on LinkedIn and take part in their industry and tech insights.

Please subscribe to our podcast which will be featured on the neXt Curve YouTube Channel. Check out the audio version on BuzzSprout or find us on your favorite Podcast platform.

Also, subscribe to the neXt Curve research portal at www.next-curve.com and our Substack (https://substack.com/@nextcurve) for the tech and industry insights that matter.

NOTE: The transcript is AI-generated and will contain errors.

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Leonard Lee, Executive Analyst at neXt Curve, and Earl Lum, President of EJL Wireless, were invited to Mavenir's Global Analyst Event 2025, which took place in Allen, Texas.

After skipping a couple of years of the event, it was good to catch up with the Mavenir leadership team and with Earl to get an update on the state of Mavenir after its re-capitalization in July of 2025, it's new charter and strategy, and the state of Open RAN.

As many of you know, Mavenir has been a bellwether of the Open RAN movement. Early on, they were pioneering the movement and the open technologies that have shaped the standard and the architectures that persist today.

Leonard and Earl unpack the following:
💥 The vibe and highlights of Mavenir Global Analyst Event 2025.
💥 The state of Open RAN Squid Game and Mavenir's post-recapitalization strategy.
💥 Open RAN for NTN - the new Open RAN frontier.
💥 AI for operations and 5G modernization.
💥 5G core with Mavenir's converged core software and strategy.
💥 AI for monetization with conversational AI and security.

Hit Leonard, Earl up on LinkedIn and take part in their industry and tech insights.

Check out Earl and his research at EJL Wireless Research at www.ejlwireless.com.

Please subscribe to our podcast which will be featured on the neXt Curve YouTube Channel. Check out the audio version on BuzzSprout or find us on your favorite Podcast platform.

Also, subscribe to the neXt Curve research portal at www.next-curve.com and our Substack (https://substack.com/@nextcurve) for the tech and industry insights that matter.

NOTE: The transcript is AI-generated and will contain errors.