Tantra's Mantra with Prakash Sangam

This is a special episode produced by the collaboration between TiE San Diego and Tantra's Mantra. In this episode, I speak to Mark Budgen of Lenovo and Rajnikant Gupta of TCS on the current status of AI adoption in enterprises. We start by discussing which segments and which functions within organizations have seen deeper adoption of AI, whether AI projects have moved from PoC and trials to produ...

At CES 2026, Lenovo showcased an exciting new AI innovation called QIRA, redefining what personalized technology can offer. This powerful, system-level feature works seamlessly across devices and platforms, enhancing user experience like never before, and it’s now being rolled out on select Lenovo devices. In this episode, I had the privilege of speaking with Jeff Snow, the Head of Product and AI...

For many years, RFID technology has been used by leading retailers such as Walmart, Macy's, and Lowe's. CVS, Zara, and others for theft prevention. But now, it is ready to go beyond this limited use case and transform supply chain logistics. In the episode, I talk to Gagan Luthra, VP of Product and Strategy at RAIN RFID leader Impinj, about the history of technology, how it is currently being used...

Just like everything else, AI is profoundly transforming the security landscape. It is increasing the attack surface, sophistication, and impact. while also providing more potent tools to increase security.  In enterprise PCs, security and device management apps (as part of the Corp Image) significantly reduce performance. AIPCs promise to run apps more efficiently on NPUs. In the episode, I talk...

This year's MWC took place as the telecom industry is at a crossroads, with additional monetization of 5G beyond mobile broadband less certain, smartphone growth flattening, AI influence increasing, and more questions than answers about the future. In this episode, Neil Shah of Counterpoint Research, Leonard Lee of Next Curve, and I discuss our experience at the event, and analyze the traction and...

Telecom was one of the earliest users of AI, long before its marketing hype and even before it was known by that name. The recent advancements are further propelling AI's use. In this episode, I talk to Dan Warren, Director of Communications Research at Samsung, regarding the role of AI in telecom networks. We discuss its role in network operations, AI for RAN, AI with RAN, and AI on RAN concepts;...

The mind-numbing investment in AI and the sky-high valuations of the companies involved have led many to wonder whether AI has become a bubble. In this episode, I talk to Dr. Riad Hartani, who is an advisor, investor, and a longtime time industry participant, on what is driving the investment - real market demand or FOMO, who is making those them, ongoing circular investment and risks, especially...

Qualcomm surprised the IoT market by announcing the acquisition of the open-source hardware champion, with a huge hobbyist/enthusiast builder ecosystem. In this episode, I talk to Qualcomm's VP of Product Management, Industrial and IoT BU, Manvinder (Manny) Singh, about the reasoning for the acquisition, challenges of the IoT industry, how AI is changing the game, what Qualcomm brings to the ecosy...

Lenovo Global Industry Analyst Conference (GIAC) 2025 was held in October 2025 at the company's US Headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina. It was a three-day event packed with Keynote Addresses, numerous panels, and breakout sessions discussing Lenovo's AI strategy and roadmap, while highlighting its market and technology leadership. There was a good amount of dialogue, Q&A, and exchange of i...

Huawei organized two major events in September 2025. The first, Huawei Connect 2025, was a larger public event for customers, partners, media, analysts, and everyone else. The second, Analyst Talks, was a small, private analyst-only event. Both were held in Shanghai, China, and showcased the company's technology prowess and progress in the global AI race. In the episode, I discuss the key takeaway...

After more than a decade of a dull period, the PC industry has seen some excitement, with AIPCs, Windows on Arm, the resurgence of Intel, and more. Amidst all this, Lenovo has continued to lead the market and brought excitement with its new concept devices, such as 360-degree display laptops, Rollable, VertiFlex, and others. In this episode, I talk to Tom Butler, Lenovo's VP of Worldwide Commercia...

Edge AI has been hailed as the future of AI. However, it is yet to take off, and most of today's investment is directed towards cloud AI. Notwithstanding that, some green shoots are emerging. In the episode, I talk to Pete Bernard, CEO of the industry association, Edge AI Foundation, on the reasons behind the slow growth of Edge AI, the challenges the industry is facing, and what use cases and ear...

Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold7 is a "no-compromise" foldable tablet-phone, and the ultimate productivity device, giving the category the best chance to be mainstream.  In this episode, I talk to Tyler Gipson, newly minted Head of Mobile B2B Sales at Samsung America, about the company's B2B/Enterprise strategy, how he plans to translate Samsung's consumer brand equity into B2B leadership, role of foldabl...

This year's Apple developers conference, WWDC, was held from June 9th to 13th. It saw many interesting announcements, including a harmonized version naming across all the OSs, interesting Apple Intelligence, and other features supported on Apple products.  In this episode, Next Curve's Leonard Lee and I discuss the event's key takeaways, including Apple opening access to its on-device LLM to app d...

Network APIs are heralded as a game changer in the ongoing struggle of 5G operators to make a good return on their enormous investments in building these highly capable networks. Unlike previous attempts, stars might be aligning this time to make APIs successful. Aduna was formed by a collaborative effort between Infra major Ericsson and scores of handpicked large global 5G operators. In this epis...

AI is jumping from one hype cycle to another. First, it was simple AI, then came Generative AI, and currently, we are reeling from Agentic AI. The new term is already lurking—Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).  Actually, AGI is pretty old, dating back to the early 2000s. What is it, and why is it gathering attention now? I talk to the person who came up with the very term--Peter Voss, CEO &amp...

Industrial technology giant Honeywell is redefining the noble barcode scanner for the industrial age. In this episode, I speak to Theodore Newman, Senior Manager of Global Application Engineering, and Steph Hobley-Lloyd, Global Offering Manager, about Honeywell's Swift Decoder SDK. We discuss the needs of barcode scanners for industrial and enterprise use cases, focusing on rapid, high-accuracy ba...

Cadence is well known for its Electronic Design Automation (EDA) tools. However, it is also building its silicon business, with a collection of various IP blocks, and recently announced a system chipset in collaboration with Arm.  In this episode, I talk to David Glasco, VP of Compute Solutions Group at Cadence, about the silicon business, product portfolio, target segments, Chiplets market and it...

Samsung launched its latest flagship Galaxy S25 Series smartphones during its Unpacked event in Jan 2025. This Gen AI powerhouse phone is powered by Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon 8 Elite mobile platform, customized for Galaxy.  In this episode, I talk to Chris Patrick, SVP and GM of Qualcomm's Handsets and Wearables business. We discuss the company's long-standing collaboration with Samsung, enabli...

This year, CES saw its highest attendance in the post-COVID era, attracting 141,000 attendees. As usual, the event saw many announcements across technology and product categories. Although AI was everywhere and IoT had a huge presence (albeit without that name), there wasn't a dominant theme. In this episode, Leonard Lee of Next Curve and I analyze what we saw and heard and try to understand the k...

Microsoft tried to redefine PCs in 2025 with the introduction of AI-infused Copilot+ PCs. Lenovo was among the top OEMs to embrace the concept and introduce a wide range of Copilot+ PCs powered by Qualcomm, Intel, and AMD SoCs. In this episode, I speak to Steve Long, SVP of Commercial Business at Lenovo, on traction in the Enterprises, market drivers, new AI use cases, improving the performance of...

Electronic Data Automation (EDA) Tools and their providers, like Cadence, are not widely known but play a critical role in the semiconductor industry.  In the episode, I talk to Rob Knoth, Group Director of Strategy and New Ventures at Cadence, about the EDA Tools ecosystem, the company's announcements at the Supercomputing 2024 event, its symbiotic relationship with AI powerhouse Nvidia, applicat...

Ericsson held its Analyst Conference on Nov. 7, 2024, at its D-15 Labs Innovation Center in Santa Clara, CA. It was a packed event with many interesting sessions with speakers from Ericsson and scores of its partners, including Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Meta, AWS, Google Cloud, Dell, Intel, and others. The theme of the event was "Programable High Performance Networks." As expected, the emphasis...

The Lenovo Tech World and Global Industry Analyst Conference were held in Bellevue (Seattle) from October 15th to 17th, 2024. During these events, the company showcased its vision for the industry through its "Hybrid AI" approach, technology, products, and services, as well as its broad industry partnerships. In this episode, Leonard Lee of Next Curve and I discuss how Lenovo, with its "pocket-to-...

Lenovo Innovation World 2024 was held in Berlin on September 4th—5th. During this event, the company announced a slew of Copilot+ PCs powered by the new Intel Core Ultra 400v, AMD Ryzen AI 300, and Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus (8-core) SoCs. In this episode, I talk to Olivier Blanchard, Research Director, Futurum Research, about the various SoCs, their strengths and weaknesses, the need for OEMs to...