VIDEO INTERVIEW: Qualcomm CTO Matt Grob has told Mobile World Live there is a business case for operators to deploy drones, with the hyped sector sharing much in common with smartphones.

Drones are unmanned, connected aerial devices with a camera and GPS and have potential for not just the robotics sector but telecoms too, claimed Grob. “In recent meetings it’s the telecom operator who brings up the topic, not Qualcomm. They have all kind of fascinating ideas about what they can do with this and how their network can enable other commercial use cases of these machines.”

Qualcomm’s interest in this sector was evidenced by the chip giant’s decision in September to launch Snapdragon Flight, its latest reference design for drones.

“Drones are a good example of what we want 5G for,” Grob commented.

Another use case for 5G interesting to Grob is the Internet of Things, or as he put it, “the internet of very complicated, sophisticated things,” such as self-driving cars which require high end processors and machine learning.

Grob also touched on the subject of Qualcomm’s internal restructuring, noting that “we are trying to be more efficient in everything we do, but we still have a very strong interest in mid and long term R&D; that part has not changed.”

“We are still investing in cutting edge technology and taking some risks”, he said, adding that the company is focused on “advancements in wireless, licenced and unlicenced bands, machine learning, computer vision and security”.

Watch the full interview here.