A building wrapped with a Mobile World Congress (MWC) banner, in Barcelona, February 23, 2024 (AFP/Josep LAGO)
The Mobile World Show (MWC), the flagship event for the telecoms sector, opens Monday in Barcelona with artificial intelligence (AI) headlining, for a sector that is banking on this technology to find new impetus.
Over four days, 95,000 professionals are expected at this annual high mass of connected services, according to the Global Association of Telecom Operators (GSMA), which has organized the event since 2006 in the Catalan capital.
According to the GSMA, which brings together nearly 750 operators and manufacturers in the telecoms sector, 2,400 exhibitors will be present, alongside 1,100 speakers (including the president of Microsoft, Brad Smith, and the CEO-founder of Dell, Michael Dell). .
Among the expected companies are most of the telecoms giants (Samsung, Xiaomi, Huawei, Orange, Vodafone, etc.) but also heavyweights in tech and industry, such as Airbus, Google and Accenture, the MWC having expanded its audience for several years.
This edition comes as the mobile market – which has been losing momentum for several years, in the absence of innovations likely to attract attention to new smartphone models – hopes to bounce back in the coming months thanks to the contributions of the ‘artificial intelligence.
According to the specialist firm IDC, 1.17 billion devices were sold worldwide last year, the lowest level in 10 years. But sales restarted in the fourth quarter (+8.5%) and “the dynamic suggests a rapid recovery”, he underlines.
Artificial intelligence “is clearly in the process of being democratized and is now embedded everywhere: in phones, in peripherals, in networks”, underlines Thomas Husson, analyst at Forrester, who expects AI to come ” relaunch innovation.
Several manufacturers have announced that they will unveil advances during the show, such as the start-up specializing in chips DeepX, the Japanese manufacturer Fujitsu or the Chinese Honor, which will unveil a camera powered by AI.
Artificial intelligence was already present at the previous MWC but, now, “we have a much better idea of how operators and the mobile industry can benefit from it” for “networks, services and devices”, judges Peter Jarich, Head of Research at GSMA.
This show will also be an opportunity for professionals to discuss the restructuring of the European market, with the merger announced in Spain between Orange and MasMovil, and the financing of telecoms networks in the face of the explosion in data traffic.
For years, operators have complained about having to invest heavily in infrastructure to allow the viewing of videos on platforms like Netflix, YouTube and TikTok. But the latter are firmly opposed to taking charge of part of these investments.
© 2024 AFP
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