Felipe VI inaugurates MWC Barcelona 2026, focused on Artificial Intelligence and 5G

The Diplomat King Felipe VI presided this Monday in Barcelona over the opening of the 2026 edition of the Mobile World Congress (MWC), the world's largest and most influential mobile and technology industry event, which is being held from March 2nd to 5th in Barcelona and focuses on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the evolution of 5G in its various applications. The King was accompanied by the Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez; the President of the Generalitat of Catalonia, Salvador Illa; the Minister of Industry and Tourism, Jordi Hereu; the Minister for Digital Transformation and Public Administration, Óscar López; and the Mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni, among others. The congress, organized by the GSMA, brings together professionals, companies, experts, and innovators from around the world and is considered the largest and most influential mobile and technology industry event for the connectivity ecosystem. New this year, the 2026 edition of MWC will feature Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the evolution of 5G in its various applications as its main themes. The event is expected to attract more than 100,000 professionals from over 200 countries. Meanwhile, after attending the opening ceremony, Pedro Sánchez held meetings with senior executives from Amazon and the telecommunications group Orange. In the first meeting, Amazon's Senior Vice President, David Zapolsky, informed him of the new €18 billion investment in Spain. This is the largest investment to date by the group's cloud computing division, Amazon Web Services, which offers on-demand technology infrastructure services—computing, storage, databases, analytics, and artificial intelligence—to businesses and public administrations outside the United States. This new investment comes on top of the €15 billion already announced in 2024 to expand its data center infrastructure in Aragon over the next ten years. Separately, Sánchez and the CEO of the Orange telecommunications group, Christel Heydemann, discussed the company's investment plans in Spain for the coming months, in line with the industrial plan announced by the operator in 2024 following the merger with MasOrange. During this meeting, the Prime Minister emphasized the importance of advancing Europe's digital sovereignty and the key role of telephone operators in this challenge, both for Spain and the European Union as a whole.

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