The GSMA presented highlights and its vision for MWC25 Barcelona at a recent press conference. This event, characterized by its unique blend of exhibitions, thought leadership, startups, and policymakers, aims to unite a diverse array of participants, including industry CEOs, innovative founders, and heads of state, for the largest and most impactful connectivity event in the world, scheduled to take place from March 3 to March 6, 2025.
The GSMA’s Director General, Mats Granryd, said:
“There’s real excitement in the air for MWC25 Barcelona; that same disruptive energy we saw with the growth of mobile is here again in the AI era. From AI to 5G Advance to the rich potential for digital services unleashed by GSMA Open Gateway, only at MWC will we first see the products and ideas that embody this spirit of innovation set to reshape our digital future.”
The role of technology in our societies is currently receiving unprecedented attention. MWC will bring together some of the most prominent thinkers globally, who will provide their perspectives on various subjects, such as the transformative impact of AI on our daily lives, the difficulties of harmonizing innovation with regulation, and the advancement of mobile networks.
This year’s keynote and conference schedule will focus on the significant trends influencing connectivity, ranging from 5G technology to advancements in AI+. In addition to an impressive roster of approximately 1,200 speakers across 19 stages at MWC25 Barcelona, recently announced keynote speakers include:
- AI Visionary, Ray Kurzweil
- Databricks’ Chief AI Officer, Naveen Rao
- European Commission’s Executive Vice President, Clean, Just, and Competitive Transition, Teresa Ribera
- US Federal Communication Commission’s Chairman, Brendan Carr
- e&’s Group CEO, Hatem Dowidar
- Maven’s Founder & CEO, Kate Ryder Maven
- Mistral AI‘s CEO and Co-founder, Arthur Mensch
- Multiverse‘s CEO and Founder, Euan Blair
- Perplexity’s CEO, Aravind Srinivas
- Pivot podcast’s co-host and NYU Professor of Marketing, Scott Galloway
- Shutterstock‘s Senior Director of AI and Data Science, Dr. Alessandra Sala
Lara Dewar, the Chief Marketing Officer of GSMA, stated that MWC25 Barcelona is poised to be one of the most intellectually stimulating and enlightening editions to date, remaining faithful to our longstanding tradition of featuring the most impactful leaders of our era. The conversations held at MWC extend well beyond the confines of the event; the keynote stage will host some of the industry’s most renowned visionaries, aiming to ignite discussions, exchange knowledge, and motivate us regarding the transformative impact of technology on our societies and the world at large.
New speakers are being regularly revealed on the MWC25 Barcelona website.
First-time exhibitors participating in the event comprise Alibaba Cloud, China Unicom, Databricks, Indra, KDDI Spherience, KYOCERA, Liberty Global, Siemens, SquareTrade, Tencent Cloud, TransUnion, and Ubiquiti. These organizations will join returning exhibitors and sponsors, including Accenture, AWS, China Mobile, Dell, e&, Ericsson, Google, HPE, Huawei, Lenovo, Meta, Nokia, Orange, Qualcomm, SK Telecom, Vodafone, Xiaomi, and ZTE, among others.
4YFN, a hub for innovative concepts, will unite startups, investors, and corporations to drive the emergence of the next wave of unicorns in Halls 8.0 and 8.1. The Banco Sabadell stage at 4YFN will feature prominent figures from the international startup and investment sectors, including Juergen Schmidhuber, a pioneer in modern artificial intelligence. On Day 3, one of the finalists for the 4YFN Awards—Bankuish, Horus ML, Qflow, Ramon. Space, or Rockfish Data—will be announced as the winner.
In Hall 4 at the GSMA Pavilion, the European Space Agency (ESA) will present the outcomes of its collaboration with the GSMA, which seeks to enhance terrestrial and satellite communication services for the benefit of society. Additionally, the GSMA will unveil a new large language model (LLM) developed in Kazakhstan, designed to assist under-resourced languages globally. This LLM was created in partnership with VEON, Beeline Kazakhstan, and the Barcelona Supercomputing Center recognized as one of Europe’s leading AI research facilities.
Adjacent to the Pavilion, the GSMA Open Gateway showcase will highlight the role of network APIs in enabling developers across various sectors to launch innovative services. The showcase will feature six demonstration pods accommodating 17 organizations, including Nokia and Elmo Cars, which will demonstrate the capability to remotely operate a vehicle in Finland using APIs.
The GSMA Ministerial Programme will bring together industry leaders, government officials, and regulatory bodies for the largest global assembly of policymakers who facilitate the digital economy. The agenda will cover topics such as AI governance, network energy efficiency, and future spectrum allocations for mobile and network investments.
MWC25 Barcelona will be held alongside FC Barcelona’s Sports Tomorrow Congress, organized by the Barca Innovation Hub in Hall 6, and for the first time, it will also feature exhibition space at 4YFN. Additionally, following a successful pilot last year, Mobile World Capital’s Talent Arena will be co-located at Fira Montjuïc. This year, over 200 speakers, including Apple Co-founder Steve Wozniak, are expected to participate in the Talent Arena.
The GSMA Open Gateway DevCon will occur at the Talent Arena, alongside the Open Gateway hackathon. Developers will have the opportunity to test their projects in real-world conditions on live networks, utilizing the latest network APIs. Mobile World Capital is also facilitating the travel of 180 developers from Paris via a charter flight with Vueling, and 70 developers will arrive on a dedicated high-speed train from Madrid with Iryo.
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