Who wouldn’t love to see all the latest technology inventions, latest trends and innovations from all around the world, gathered in the same place, at the same time? The GSMA celebrated the beginning of 2022 in a very exciting way, by organizing the world’s largest mobile hybrid conference, which took all the attention of different experts from around the world, focused on different technologies and working fields. For those who don’t know, the GSMA is a global organization unifying the mobile ecosystem to discover, develop and deliver innovation foundational to positive business environments and societal change. This year GSMA hosted the MWC22 Barcelona-Spain, and fortunately for our readers, 4imag got the chance to be present and take a much closer look on how this conference showcased the latest and coolest technological innovations from all countries.
The MWC (mobile world conference) this year took as all by the wind and blew our minds, after a forced cancellation a year ago due to the unfortunate global pandemic. Called ‘Connectivity Unleashed’, just like the name, this conference had on great purpose, gathering together in one place the latest technologies from every corner of the world, starting from the tech giants, to the newest and most promising start ups, that are bringing new innovative technologies every day.
The conference lasted a whole 4 days, starting from the 28th of February, till 3rd of March, and it was filled with company and products expositions, showcases of the latest tech gadgets, inventions and inspiring Tech Talks for everyone. It hosted over 61,000 attendees from 200 different countries. Over these four days, more than 1900 companies joined the MWC22 the role of mobile technology in unleashing connectivity, exploring 5G Connect sponsored by Salesforce, Advancing AI, Internet of Everything, CloudNet, FinTech, and the Tech Horizon. This conference was based on a hybrid concept, where besides the physical event; everyone could attend virtually and be a part of different seminars and showcases. Over 1000 speakers were invited and got to share their knowledge with the crowd, which reached a rough number of 500,000 unique virtual and daily viewers, of which 20,000 people were physically present.
The technologies that were showcased varied from 5G that is revolutionizing how robotics works, IoT innovations in different working fields, advanced Artificial Intelligence to the latest AR and VR trends that could play tricks with your mind. The tech giants that were present at the conference were companies such as Microsoft, Samsung, Huawei, Cisco, Oppo, Lenovo, VMware, Xiaomi, Nokia and many others, that brought us some changes that were highlighted during the MWC22.
- 5G is hitting 2billion by 2025
The GSMA reported during the conference that 5G connections will surpass 1 billion in 2022 and 2 billion by 2025. By the end of 2025, 5G will represent one in five of total mobile connections.
“5G accounts for a much larger share of global mobile connections than 3G or 4G did at the same point in their lifecycles,” Alex Sinclair, Chief Technology Officer of GSMA, said during the conference.
At the conference we witnessed how 5G networks has amazing uses that are ideal to create an increasingly intelligent and reactive environment that fosters economic prosperity, health and welfare.
- Extended reality is becoming the new way of living.
The MWC conference showed us that XR(or metaverse) is the talk of the moment, and where the future is headed. Different companies, mostly from South Korea, Thailand and China that have lead this market for years now, exhibited at the conference the new innovations of AR/VR and the revolution that XR is trying to bring to the market. Huawei’s Cloud XR service is one example of XR Reality enablement that was presented at the MWC22. It includes multiple cloud-based capabilities like large-scale 3D mapping, all-scenario adaptive spatial computing and digital human rendering with precision and real life look alike models.
Philip Song, Chief Marketing Officer for Huawei Carrier, said that the user experience opportunities are growing, becoming more secure and extending development opportunities: the new OPEN XR standard is now supported by many hardware, platform and engine companies.
- Cybersecurity in focus in 2022
Researchers emphasized the impact of service providers from around the world that are working in a hybrid work state, that the need of cybersecurity is rising even more given the circumstances that the world is working in after the hit of the pandemic.
“Service providers will continue to adapt to the dramatic changes in the workforce behavior patterns that emerged in the global pandemic and will continue into 2022,” according to researchers. Given the fact that with the changes made in the way people work, where security issues have risen in numbers everywhere in the world, are now in focus the proactive solutions that companies are trying to find. This means that the need to take precaution measures regarding cyber safety is much higher this year and ongoing than it was before the global pandemic. At the MWC it was highlighted that service providers will beef up offerings to help enterprises in the areas of compliance, security, governance, ransomware and risk mitigation.
In conclusion, we noticed that the innovations that the largest tech companies are bringing for 2022 are tremendously amazing. Starting from the newest gadgets, smartphones, and technological solutions that are out in the market, we can tell that this year will be a good one regarding tech innovations, and it’s making us eager to see what will the next MWCBarcelona will bring.
