The phrase “cellular network” might conjure images of hundred-foot towers, but the next phase of 5G could be focused on equipment that’s a bit more discreet.

Zoom in: All three of the US’s largest public cell-tower companies have said they expect 2023 to be a big year for small cells, as 5G buildouts shift away from 5G macro deployments toward smaller mobile installations and telcos begin to finish their mid-band 5G rollouts.

• A small cell is a low-cost radio access point with a low radio frequency, power output, footprint, and range.

Houston-based Crown Castle is one of the country’s largest cell-tower operators, and in addition to its formidable network of traditional cell towers, it operates a large number of small cells throughout the country. Crown Castle then rents access to that infrastructure to telcos and private companies.

• The company, which saw site rental revenue grow by 8% year over year in Q3 2022 to nearly $1.6 billion, currently operates about 115,000 small cells throughout the country, in cities like Seattle and New York City.

Looking ahead...Crown Castle typically deploys about 5,000 small cells a year, including in 2022, but plans to double that rate to 10,000 this year, per its Q3 2022 earnings release, highlighting its rising emphasis on this tech. Click here to keep reading about the rise of small cells.—JM

Academics, security pros, and policymakers recently swarmed Washington, DC, for the first-ever Quantum World Congress, a mass gathering of quantum computing experts. Among the biggest topics of discussion, according to Axios, was the “quantum encryption apocalypse.”

That’s the concept that some of the most widespread encryption algorithms in use today are vulnerable to codebreaking by next-generation computers operating on principles of quantum mechanics. The biggest unknown might not be when this threat arrives, but what cybersecurity pros can do to prepare for it.

What’s quantum uncertainty about? Traditional computers use bits, a logical state with two possible values: 1 or 0. Quantum computers rely on qubits, which can be both 1 or 0 simultaneously.

• In theory, qubits can generate solutions to problems in hours or days that would take classical computers exponential amounts of time—say, trillions of years—like cracking RSA encryption.

Existing quantum computer prototypes aren’t accurate enough to be of use solving practical problems. Yet that could rapidly change if or when certain engineering problems like noise mitigation are solved. Click here to keep reading this story from IT Brew.—TM

Coworking is a weekly segment where we spotlight Emerging Tech Brew readers who work with emerging technologies. Click here if you’d like a chance to be featured.

How would you describe your job to someone who doesn’t work in tech?

Herding really, really smart and passionate cats. Joking aside, I believe my role is to exercise sound judgment and ensure we focus on the most valuable features to Crunchbase’s customers. Specifically, by figuring out what we should create next and why, how it can be done, and how to gauge if we’re succeeding.

What’s your favorite emerging tech project you’ve worked on?

I loved working on our new Similar Companies feature at Crunchbase. It uses machine learning to help dealmakers discover companies they should know about and prospect to based on the profile they are already viewing.

On the surface, the task seems simple. Given company A, return similar companies. Pretty straightforward. But the journey proved challenging. We started simple, but with a forward-looking infrastructure. This allowed us to progressively build a more complex neural network that continuously improves the data quality for our users. It’s a project the team is very proud of and a benchmark for future data science projects here.

What emerging tech are you most optimistic about?

I’m most hopeful about self-supervised learning enabling us to make real headway in artificial intelligence. It presents a solution to the bottleneck for building more intelligent generalist models without requiring massive amounts of labeled data. I believe these future models will someday allow us to create software that does the job for you.

For example, Spotify can connect people with artists. But what if Spotify could actually make music specifically for you? Or if Airbnb could design and manage vacations on your behalf?

Stat: The PC market data is in—from three different analyst firms—and it’s not looking good. Estimates for Q4 PC sales fell by ~28%, according to separate estimates from Gartner, IDC, and Canalys, per TechCrunch.

Quote: “Ninety-eight percent of CEOs in the US think there is going to be a recession—but it’s going to be short and shallow.”—Dana Peterson, the Conference Board’s chief economist, to the WSJ

Read: A deep look at the FAA’s beleaguered efforts to modernize its computer systems.

Download: New year, new you?Make 2023 your best year yet with our Resolution Tracker Bundle. From budgeting, to wellness, to habit tracking—we’ve got you covered. Get yours now.

Personal finance tips: Money Scoop is the 3x-a-week personal finance newsletter that makes you smarter about your $$$. You’ll learn how to better invest, budget, spend, manage your taxes, and much more—all for free. Subscribe now.

Enough chit-chat—it’s time to see how well you remember last week’s news.

Click here to play this week’s trivia.

Catch up on the top Emerging Tech Brew stories from the past few editions:

• Why some VCs are taking notes from a niche battery group
• The year ahead for climate-tech investment
• ASML’s CFO predicts growth despite rocky chip market