In the past, MWC Barcelona was “Who had the best smart phone?”, then it was “Who has the best virtual headset?”. This year, it felt like the competition is changing to “Who has the best robot?”.
However, arguably, the biggest conflict at the conference has been the event’s fight with itself. MWC Barcelona 2026 made AI the central theme of most of its topics. Yet 5G is the real issue operators are dealing with, and GSMA’s Director General, Vivek Badrinath, is aware of it.
While not in the spotlight, if you listened, you got a sense of the conflicting issues.
Embracing 5G was the primary topic of the DG’s opening keynote speech. Addressing delegates regarding 5G uptake, he stated, “…operators are seeing double the revenue growth compared to those without it.”
Later, the DG spoke of people complaining about the failures of 5G. Countering the narrative he highlighted real-world 5G use cases on display at the conference and implored operators to deploy 5G.
Never-the-less, AI was front and centre everywhere, with keynotes like, “Robots Among Us: Are We Ready for Embodied AI?”. The concept is about as far from dealing with actual challenges that telecom operators face that you can get.
The conflict is also embodied by attendance statistics, which show core mobile ecosystem attendees are close to 40%. Nearly 60% are industry adjacent attendees.
