The 2023 edition of the Mobile World Congress took place from 27 February to 2 March in Barcelona. Over the years, the MWC has become one of the top global events for technology and startups, offering attendees the opportunity to dive into the heart of innovation and experience the latest trends and technologies shaping the industry. This year's edition promised to highlight new behaviours for a new reality and it has delivered on its promises. Definitely, the MWC is the benchmark space for business digitisation.

MWC 2023 welcomed more than 88,000 attendees from over 200 countries and territories worldwide, including representation from more than 2,800 organisations. This global participation highlights the importance of MWC in the technology industry and its relevance as a must-attend event for any professional involved in business digitisation.

This year, the latest trends and key topics at MWC included 5G Acceleration, Reality +, Digital Assets, Artificial Intelligence and Industry 4.0 solutions. These trends are shaping the future of the technology industry and accelerating the transformation of all businesses.

• 5G Acceleration: The 5G network promises faster speeds, lower latency and greater connectivity, which is expected to transform how we interact with technology. Attendees were able to see demonstrations of 5G-enabled devices, such as smartphones, laptops and IoT devices, alongside discussions on how 5G will enable new use cases in the fields of smart cities, autonomous mobility and remote surgery.

• Reality +:  The new digital, immersive, augmented, hybrid or parallel (metaverse) realities are transforming the way we interact with technology, providing complete new sensory experiences. Attendees interacted with Reality + applications to enjoy concerts, play games, shop, connect with their favourite brands or train. An exercise in making the disruptive possibilities of these technologies tangible, helping professionals imagine how the environment where their businesses operate will be transformed.

• Digital Assets: We are entering a new era of digital ownership that will enable greater control over our digital identities, the data associated with our behaviours, and the creation and ownership of multiple native digital assets. The confusion generated by aggressive speculative models related to cryptocurrencies should not mislead us regarding the disruptive possibilities of blockchain-based solutions.

• Artificial Intelligence: AI is the star trend of 2023, providing new ways to process, analyse and interpret information and data. Attendees were able to view demonstrations of AI solutions, and conversations and discussions were opened about its application in different industries and businesses.

• Industry 4.0: Automation and smart manufacturing will be key to responding to the geostrategic developments caused, in the first instance, by the pandemic and, in the second, with greater intensity, by the Ukrainian conflict. The economic globalisation that has shaped the global path for the last 30 years is giving way to a new globalised localisation or localised globalisation. Global economic interdependencies remain latent and are unlikely to disappear, but they will be combined with local territorial clusters that will allow the production of critical assets (from food to microprocessors) in territorial blocs that will compete with each other and will be limited to consumption areas with shared sovereignties (USA + Canada, China, EU, etc.). Attendees explored the possibilities of robotics, IoT sensor technology, mass automation or production digital twins that allow for greater efficiency and flexibility in manufacturing processes.

These are just a few examples of what attendees saw regarding the latest trends and topics at Mobile World Congress 2023.

The emergence of these technologies, the relationship between them (a 5G network will power Reality + solutions generated with AI solutions in which users will create and manage their own Digital Assets) and the combination with consolidated technologies (the application of AI solutions to the corporate data lake continuously fed in real time by 5G networks managing the data generated by the industrial and logistical IoT system) will be key factors for the business competitiveness of companies.

Without a doubt, once again this year, the heart of the event has been 4YFN. The space to enjoy the spirit and innovation of Barcelona, the place where it is possible to identify the seeds of the companies of the future and the startup ecosystem that established businesses need to create their own future.

In this edition, 4YFN brought together more than 700 startups that had the opportunity to build bridges and alliances with different companies to co-create next-generation products and services.

Once again this year at RocaSalvatella, we had the opportunity to provide a unique experience for our clients by creating specific and personalised tours that offer the chance to witness the latest innovations up close. We believe our efforts helped to make a lasting impression on our clients and we look forward to continuing to provide exceptional services and experiences in the future.

In conclusion, the Mobile World Congress has established itself as the leading global digital business event and the ideal platform for connecting with the most disruptive startups. And all of this took place in Barcelona, a European benchmark in technological innovation and the established home of the MWC until at least 2030.

Save the date in your calendar for MWC 2024, which will take place from 26 to 29 February 2024!