Technological advancements in cellular standards have been the hallmark of MWC for 2 decades, dating back to the 2G and 3G eras. This year, that will change for many reasons:
- Open Radio Access Network (RAN) and even Cloud RAN are stalling, due to the market stagnating.
- Network Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) offer an unclear path to large-scale monetization, despite being marketed as the next best thing.
- 5G-Advanced will not likely bring a huge revenue boost, certainly not the same as LTE-Advanced did.
- 6G is still 3 years away from standardization and Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) express their investment fatigue from costly 5G rollouts.
Through various discussions with industry stakeholders and cross-market observations, ABI Research understands that much of the technology value is now transforming from communications to compute. MNOs and their partners are rebranding themselves as computing powerhouses by investing in Artificial Intelligence (AI) chipsets, edge platforms, and their own sovereign cloud capabilities. In some ways, you could say telcos are following in the footsteps of cloud hyperscalers (Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud), which already dominate the edge computing space.
While it’s true that AI has been a key focus for the last couple of MWC events, our team is looking forward to seeing some forward-looking use cases evolve from theory to reality. This means device Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), infrastructure suppliers, cloud service providers, and other technology vendors will demonstrate how their compute capabilities translate into real-world gains. Trendy topics like Agentic AI may generate that initial interest from prospects when they read about it in an article, but seeing a clear Return on Investment (ROI) revealed in person will make far more of an impact and win over key decision makers.
The ABI Research team expects large infrastructure vendors to start pivoting toward AI and cloud resources, not only driven by the broader technology market, but also due to their increased need to pivot away from the 5G business. For example, Nokia and Huawei will likely focus heavily on AI due to their inability to expand their cellular business, for different reasons. What they share at MWC 2025 remains to be seen, but ABI Research expects bold announcements.
Catch Our Other Posts:
Comms to Compute: Will the Mobile Ecosystem Transform at MWC 2025?
The Network APIs Pivot at MWC 2025: Bridging the Comms-Compute Gap
MWC-2025: East-West Divide amid Compute-Comms Convergence
Will the Industry Regain Its Footing?
It has been looking bleak for the mobile ecosystem in recent years, but our team insists that compute-based services can rejuvenate it.
Our analysts will be attending MWC to answer the question of whether the telco value chain can harness the benefits of the shift to compute. Be sure to keep tabs on our Whitepapers listing page for our MWC 2025 wrap-up paper when we will give a comprehensive analysis of our thoughts on MWC and the developments we witness in the telco ecosystem.
You can also connect with our research experts at MWC for a one-on-one discussion on the latest industry trends, emerging technologies, and key market opportunities.
If you missed the first blog for our MWC 2025 series, read it here.
