A Look Back at MWC Barcelona 2024
Dave Hourn
As we get ready for MWC Shanghai 2024, it feels like a good time to reflect on the Barcelona event where I got to spend the week playing with the latest in robotics, virtual reality headsets and artificially intelligent humanoids… This was definitely one of the highlights of my first year at DA.
For the uninitiated, Mobile World Congress (MWC) Barcelona is the one of the largest technology events by attendance in the world, with just over 100,000 individuals passing through the doors over the course of four days with exhibits and sessions held by roughly 2,700 partners.
How did I manage to score myself an invite to such a cool event? At DA we are partnered with the GSMA (who put on the MWC event series) and are behind the website for each of their events - Barcelona, Shanghai, Las Vegas and Kigali - as well as the M360 series and I was lucky enough to be one of four DA staff to land a ticket.
The first thing a first-timer to the event notices is the sheer scale - there are eight huge halls, each taking a good five minutes to walk through if you weren’t stopping (but obviously you will stop!).
With all this incredible tech to check out where does one even start? Hall 3 was the first I dropped down into and it was pretty much impossible to ignore the helicopter right in front of you. This is part of Joby Aviation and SK Telecom’s plan to launch a helicopter taxi service for five people (Editor note: This looks like it has launched in the last week or so in Seoul at the eye watering price of US$320 one way).
As you could imagine artificial intelligence was a huge theme of this years conference on the back of ChatGPT’s launch in 2023 and the subsequent release of numerous AI engines since and It was interesting to see the mad scramble for position in the “AI-sphere”. One does get the feeling ChatGPT caught a lot of companies by surprise and some of their releases do feel a little rushed, for instance Google Gemini (having been released only a couple of months before MWC) is clearly some distance behind in it’s development.
The use of AI in robotics was fascinating to watch from actual sized humanoids to a face portal which felt like they were positioned for use in something like a hotel check in. I must admit though, I’m not sure how ready the world is going to be for these products en mass, just yet… But people will need to get used to them because at some level, these machines are coming.
My personal favourite concept was the Alef flying car which is being pushed for public use. Their tagline is "take off vertically when needed and fly overhead above traffic, we're building the solution to the issues of modern congestion"... As much as I loved it, I'm struggling to see how this will work in practice and also, their $300K price tag seems awfully light for a car that can take off vertically. Nevertheless, the idea of flying around George Jetson style appeals to my childhood self a hell of a lot.
In amongst numerous talks, one that stood out for me was from a number of researchers (such as Jenni Strabley from Quantinuum) into quantum computing, which has become something a forgotten technology thanks to the AI boom of the last 12 months. Although quantum computing has still not lived up to it’s potential, those at the talk were adamant that is getting closer and closer to a breakthrough and that artificial intelligence will actually super charge quantum computing. Curious to see how this space works. Speaking of quantum computing, over at Four Years From Now (4YFN) the start up which won their annual event was Qilimanjaro Quantum Tech.
All in all, a fantastic three days at MWC Barcelona (we arrived for day two) and one I’d recommend for any technology enthusiast to get themselves to at some point in their lives if they can. Check out the photo album as there is so much technology that is easier to visualise than it is to explain - the pulsating wall is one video worth checking out and one can easily see how this could feature in some of the worlds biggest sporting stadiums or at concerts.