Nikola Tesla Predicted Smartphones: How Creative Intuition Stays Ahead of Time

28 Jan, 2026
| Salome K

A Hundred Years Ago, Nikola Tesla Accurately Predicted the Emergence of Smartphones

Almost a century ago, the visionary inventor Nikola Tesla, guided by his extraordinarily powerful creative intuition, predicted the emergence of modern smartphones.

In a 1926 interview, Tesla imagined a future in which wireless technology would turn the Earth into a “huge brain,” connecting all people and enabling instant communication.

He foresaw that “through television and telephony we shall see and hear one another as perfectly as though we were face to face,” and envisioned compact devices that could be carried “in the vest pocket” — an astonishingly accurate description of modern mobile phones.

Tesla’s prophecy highlights not only his genius, but also the immense power of creative intuition in shaping technological progress.

At a time when rotary phones and radio were considered cutting-edge technologies, Tesla described a global wireless communication network — complete with video calls and portable devices — decades before such technologies were actually developed. His creative intuition still testifies to the depth of his understanding of electricity, magnetism, and the future of communication.

Source:
Tesla, N. (1926). Interview for Collier’s Magazine, broadcast on PBS.

Soviet philosophers rejected intuition due to the dominance of dialectical materialism, which demanded strictly scientific and rational modes of knowledge, dismissing illogical and subjective “bourgeois” approaches such as intuitionism. These were considered irrational and anti-scientific, contradicting the principles of Marxism–Leninism, which formed the foundation of the official ideology and philosophy of the USSR and emphasized objectivity and collective experience over individual “insight.”

Although the USSR collapsed, its long-term impact on people’s consciousness has, unfortunately, persisted. In Russia, it remains extremely difficult to accept new, world-class innovative ideas.

I personally encountered this when developing the world’s first hardware crypto smartphone with its own operating system. Bill Gates valued the project at $300,000,000. In Russia, everything was done to prevent its widespread sale. And my company was not the only one. There were also other highly interesting developments in the field of cryptography by different companies, but none achieved broad adoption. The reason? Soviet psychology.

Confronting this Soviet philosophical legacy, I had to overcome it with immense difficulty, while saving Russia from financial collapse and destruction
(“The Robbery of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation” — https://lenta.ru/articles/2023/04/07/avizoo/amp/).
Nevertheless, I managed to defeat the System and prevent further destruction of Russia.

In the West, my encryption devices were widely used in 64 countries worldwide. My crypto smartphone, priced at $1,300,000, ranks sixth in the world among the most expensive mobile phones.

I am often asked why a cryptographer suddenly began producing chocolate based on Nostradamus’s ancient recipes. You will find the answer in my books:
“Encryptors and Radio Intelligence: Shield and Sword of the Information World,”
“Espionage: Encryptors and Chocolate,”
as well as in more than 1,500 literary works published on the literary website Proza.ru:
http://proza.ru/avtor/kl1903
and in my videos.

P.S.
Leonardo da Vinci, also guided by his creative intuition, predicted the emergence of mobile phones more than 500 years ago:
“People will instantly exchange shells and, with their help, will speak over great distances.”