Marcus Weldon: '5G will enable a new era of productivity and economic growth'

In the early aughts, Nokia produced the most coveted mobile phones in the world, before it was disrupted by big tech giants ushering in the age of smartphones. The Finnish multinational corporation no longer produces phones directly, as its core activity has shifted to network equipment. It now aims to lead the market for end-to-end 5G networks. With a PhD in physical chemistry from Harvard and a B.Sc. in computer science and chemistry from King’s College, British executive Marcus Weldon, Nokia’s chief technology officer and Nokia Bell Labs’ president, has global responsibility for defining the company’s technology strategy. Marcus believes 5G technology will be able to solve the productivity paradox, “the global slowdown in productivity growth despite a rapid acceleration in technology progress”, as he and co-authors Sanjay Kamat, Subra Prakash and Iraj Saniee explain in the white paper Digital networks at the nexus of productivity growth. “5G will enable a new era of productivity and economic growth”, he told LSE Business Review managing editor Helena Vieira on 5 November, during the Web Summit conference in Lisbon.