If you expected the theme of Mobile World Congress (MWC) to be anything other than Artificial Intelligence (AI), then you’ll be disappointed.

This year marked the event’s 20th anniversary in Barcelona, and despite travel chaos from the war in the Middle East, more than 105,000 people attended, according to organizers GSMA.

AI once again dominated discussions around the telecom industry’s flagship trade show. In fact, you’d have been hard-pressed to find a stand that didn’t have AI advertised in some capacity. It was a continuation of last year’s event, and I suspect many more in the future.

But while this was the pervasive narrative, and rightly so, given the impact the technology will have in shaping the next generation of mobile networks of the near future, other topics caught DCD’s eye during the show.

The telco Edge

One of those topics was around Edge computing, which has been tentatively spoken about in the past. This week, though, and for the first time in the four years I’ve been attending MWC since joining DCD, Edge was a common theme.

At previous events, I’ve often attempted to ask telcos questions about their Edge strategy and been met with little response, but this week it was very different. Telcos couldn’t talk enough about Edge compute and the need for inferencing at the Edge.

What the Edge means for some is different to others. For example, some see the Edge as the device, while others may see it as a place to process important data away from a data center.

Of course, a lot of that is due to the AI boom. But there’s also a sovereignty angle to it as well, as the conversation around secure data grows.

As an example of telcos pushing hard on Edge, last month, Telefónica activated its commercial Edge computing services for Spanish businesses.

And during MWC, the European Commission, along with a consortium led by Telefónica and 70 European entities, unveiled EURO-3C. It’s been described as the ‘first pan-European sovereign infrastructure integrating telco, Edge, cloud, and AI capabilities under a federated, open, and secure model.’

The fact that Edge is being touted as an integral part of operators’ focus suggests the industry may have found its use case for this, and that’s around sovereignty.

Nvidia World Congress?

One company that was impossible to avoid this week was Nvidia, which carved out several telecoms partnerships, notably an open source 6G AI alliance with several vendors, operators, and cloud companies.

As I saw in one post on LinkedIn from Ookla analyst Mike Dano, “Was it MWC or NWC (Nvidia World Congress)?” The tech giant, the most valuable company in the world, was everywhere, even if the company didn’t have its own stand.

In fairness, Nvidia doesn’t need to. The tech giant was scattered across several halls at The Fira with its partners, spanning RAN vendors, telcos, networking, and more.

Nvidia’s presence at MWC follows its high-profile $1 billion investment into Nokia last year, and reflects the company’s opinion that network operators have a huge role to play in shaping the AI use cases of the future.

The company sees this as a huge opportunity to bet on, notably AI RAN (Radio Access Networks), and wants to help telcos to maximize their potential on these future 6G networks.

On this note, Nvidia outlined a “commitment” along with several top telecom companies to form an open 6G alliance.

Soma Velayutham, general manager for AI and telecoms, Nvidia, told me that this is the “iPhone moment” for the base station. The iPhone has, of course, been very successful, and Nvidia and telcos from across the world are banking on AI RAN to help claw back some return on this investment.

All roads lead to 6G

We’re probably around halfway through the 5G launch cycle, given that the technology first emerged in late 2018.

And while 5G has focused more on leveraging AI within these networks in more recent years, the technology hasn’t been built around this.

The message from the vendors, operators, cloud providers, and software companies, around 6G, is very much that it will be AI-native.

Beyond this, telcos also spoke a lot about the need to build open networks, including vendors Ericsson and Nokia. While Open RAN has divided opinion in the 5G era, it looks certain to play a key role in the next one.

There’s also a focus on how telcos can minimize capex spending, with many feeling burnt by the promise of 5G, which has largely underdelivered.

With the specifications of 6G still to be determined, it’s likely some time before a commercial network will launch. A promising sign can be found in the fact that Ericsson completed a successful 6G pre-standard over-the-air (OTA) session trial before the show at its US HQ in Plano, Texas.

One bold prediction, again from analyst Dano, is that 6G could surface at the 2028 Olympics, being held in Los Angeles. Given the focus from governments to drive technology leadership, this could be the ideal place to showcase the technology.

Other hot topics

Other things of note during the week: The usual suspects were bemoaning European regulation as an obstacle for operators, with leading telcos concerned that Europe is falling behind the US and China. It’s been a common theme during the recent editions of the show.

The emergence of satellites was also another standout theme across the halls. Carriers continue to strike partnerships in the field, though I wouldn’t expect this to threaten the terrestrial networks too much, but instead plug the coverage gaps in remote areas. The main question is whether there’s much value in this for the telco providers. Time will tell if it’s all hype or another solid revenue stream for mobile carriers.

While discussions mainly centered on future technologies, such as AI and 6G, there was also some focus on the here and now, 5G. Telcos know they’ve still got a lot to deliver with the technology, along with 4G, of course. A report from Ookla highlights this too, placing 5G SA availability at around 17.6 percent in Q4 2025. Work to do indeed.

Telco Dave’s final thoughts

Finally, a massive shoutout to the SDxCentral team, both those at the event in Barcelona and covering the show from home. SDx joined the DCD/InfraXmedia family last year, and this is the first time we’ve done an MWC together.

Collectively, it’s been a great team effort to cover the event, and it represents a significant ramp-up of DCD’s wider telecoms channel coverage.

Next week, there will be more MWC-related content on the website, but for now, time to sleep and burn off all that tapas. Thankfully, Tottenham can’t ruin my weekend either.