MWC 2022: All the B2B news live from Barcelona

So what are we expecting to see at MWC 2022? The team here at TechRadar Pro have gazed into the tea leaves and come up with the following thoughts and predictions…

Desire Athow, Managing Editor, TechRadar Pro

“It’s hard to believe that the chatter around 5G started to become louder at MWC 2014, eight years ago when the Samsung Galaxy S5 was launched. Since then the pandemic and the following lockdowns have changed how business is done. The conversation is now clearly focused on the transformative impact 5G can have on everything around us. It now feels right to bring MWC back to its B2B industrial roots after a decade when the headlines were dominated by new smartphones that didn’t really bring much to the table after the first iterations. So, like the previous years, expect to hear a lot about IoT, AI, Edge computing, Blockchain, analytics, robotics and automation. Oh and the Metaverse of course.”

Mike Moore, Deputy Editor, TechRadar Pro

“After a year away as a virtual event, it’s good to see the appetite for Mobile World Congress is still there. Although not all the big vendors will be present, it should still be an exciting show for tech fans across many industries. This could be the first time we get a proper look at 6G networks, even if just as a proof of concept, as well as maybe finding out what blockchain actually does and how it can help the mobile industry. And with 5G networks now firmly set in place across the world, I’m hoping to see and hear more about some amazing use cases that make the most of superfast connections.”

Joel Khalili, News & Features Editor, TechRadar Pro

“I’ll be on the ground at MWC for TechRadar Pro this year, hearing first-hand from some of the most influential players in sectors ranging from hardware to networking, cloud, security and computing.”

“It’s obvious that 5G will be the glue that binds all these themes together at the show, as it has been for the past few years. But specifically, early whispers would suggest we’re set to hear a lot more about the opportunities that private 5G networks might create, as well as how 5G can combine with advances in AI to enable new opportunities at the edge.”

Steve McCaskill, Mobile Industry Correspondent, TechRadar Pro

“Although MWC 2022 will be a much smaller event than what we had become used to, it feels reassuring that the show is a) going ahead and b) is back in its usual late February / early March timeslot. 

“For those that are in attendance, Congress will be an opportunity to reconnect with old friends and contacts and strike deals in the corridors and networking areas of the Fira. In that spirit of partnership, I expect to see more collaborations between the world of telecoms and IT as operators continue their 5G rollouts and begin to accelerate the modernisation of their back-end infrastructure with open systems and cloud-native infrastructure. This convergence will be especially evident in areas like Open RAN, private wireless, and the Internet of Things (IoT). It may not seem as exciting as a new handset, but it will be just as important.”