MWC25 Helps Clarify AI’s Role in Wi-Fi, but Also Lays Bare Wi-Fi 7’s Challenges

Mobile World Congress (MWC) is typically characterized by hype and bombast, but this year’s MWC25 was a notable departure from that norm. Instead of stoking anticipation for an unquantifiable future potential, exhibitors were focused on articulating how existing technologies could be effectively applied and monetized. Perhaps this down-to-Earth turn stemmed, in part, from a realization that the industry must first show results from previously hyped technologies (5G and Artificial Intelligence (AI)) before they could transition to new ones. It might also reflect the evident (but often left unspoken) uncertain economic and geopolitical environment that overshadowed the show, with businesses desperate for a quick revenue boost in the near term to stem their losses. Regardless, the result was a balanced discussion on how existing Wi-Fi 7 technology can transform residential and enterprise networks, and on the realistic applications of AI, with caveats that the technology still faces challenges. 6G, on the other hand, as a technology that many expected would make an appearance at the mobile industry’s premier event, was barely mentioned. This ABI Insight analyzes the Wi-Fi-related announcements from MWC25 and attempts to forecast the next steps of the industry’s leading vendors following the show.

Beginning with AI, there were two distinct strains of AI-related innovation for Wi-Fi on display at MWC25 (ignoring the many “AI-driven” Wi-Fi features, which are merely repackaged existing technologies). The first is the introduction of Neural Processing Units (NPUs) on-chip for edge AI. Processing data on-device, as opposed to in the cloud, allows for both faster, lag free outputs and a reduction in network traffic. Although there were no major new product announcements coinciding with the event, Qualcomm did introduce its new Dragonwing brand portfolio, with the rebranded NPro A7 Platform, a week before the show. News of the first Proof of Concept (PoC) test for a Singtel gateway powered by this chip then hit on the eve of MWC25, with Qualcomm celebrating that by leveraging the Smart Traffic Classifier feature with a 50% reduction in average latency for applications achieved. Likely to avoid being drowned out by the flurry of competing MWC25 announcements, MediaTek chose to unveil the latest editions to its edge AI portfolio, the Genio 720 and Genio 520, the week following MWC25 (at embedded world). The focus on value-add though on-device NPUs reflects a broader trend playing out at MWC25—the shift from communications to compute across the industry.

The second strain of AI for Wi-Fi networking innovation is on the network management side, with AI stepping in to assist with configuring, managing, maintaining, and optimizing the network. One of the most promising developments is the emergence of Generative Artificial Intelligence (Gen AI) assistants, which the administrator can interact with using simple conversational language, lowering the barrier to entry for network management and facilitating expediated troubleshooting and network optimization. Aside from the Marvis Virtual Network Assistant from long-time market leader Juniper, we were also introduced to Intent AI from CommScope and the AICC (the AI-Powered Contact Center) from Huawei. These assistants proactively monitor network performance to detect areas for improvement, but in each case, the user is always given the final say whether or not to proceed with network adjustments. The prospect of Gen AI fully automating the network in the future was the topic of several conversations, but almost everyone agreed that businesses would forever be reluctant to sacrifice control completely.

Perhaps because of the emphasis on compute over communications, 6G was, for the most part, absent from MWC25, although comparisons between 5G and Wi-Fi were, of course, aplenty (something of an MWC tradition at this point). Yet, while these comparisons again often descended into open rivalry, the dramatic shift in the dynamic between the two technologies over the past 12 months meant that 5G often found itself without a leg to stand on. Not only is it now self-evident and broadly acknowledged that 5G has failed to live up to its promise, but given that much of that unfulfilled promise was based on the capabilities of the now fading Millimeter Wave (mmWave) (starkly highlighted by recent news that the iPhone 16e won’t support mmWave), the industry is left in a haze as to what the real potential of 5G is. Until this is clarified, the industry will struggle to effectively monetize the technology. At the same time, Wi-Fi has seen considerable advancements over the past year, with Wi-Fi 7 and the new 6 Gigahertz (GHz) spectrum enabling new capabilities and greater reliability, which mean that the technology is able to encroach on 5G’s projected addressable market.

The omnipresence of Wi-Fi 7 also reflects the fact that the latest standard has now progressed from being a novel technology to one that is in the mainstream. At the same time though, MWC25 also highlighted the growing chasm that exists between fully fledged Wi-Fi 7, which has access to the new 6 GHz spectrum, and dual-band Wi-Fi 7, that can harness just the legacy 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands. The latter is seeing higher than anticipated demand not just from regions without 6 GHz access, but also from cost-sensitive consumers worldwide, notably in Europe and Asia. Recent news that India has opted to also allocate 6 GHz for IMT usage, just as Mainland China did before it, has cemented the fracturing of the market. Yet, despite the fact that performance and quality of experience will be starkly different between the two variants of Wi-Fi 7, both were marketed simply as Wi-Fi 7 at MWC25. This is a major issue that the industry needs to address as soon as possible to avoid further damage to the technology’s market potential through confusion.

The prominence of MWC ensured that all the major equipment vendors working within the telecommunications industry were present at the show, including enterprise Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) vendors of Cisco, HPE Aruba Networking, Juniper Networks, and Huawei, as well as the residential Wi-Fi market-orientated TP-Link. This final section assesses the future trajectory of these companies post-MWC25, with a projection for how they will approach MWC26.

• HPE and Juniper: The unexpected January decision by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to block HPE’s acquisition of Juniper Networks likely upended the internal strategies of both companies. While they were barred from collaborating prior to what was expected to be an approval of the acquisition, they would also not have invested in capabilities that would have been irrelevant following the merger. Moreover, confusion for customers and prospects of both companies caused by the initial announcement back in January 2024 have not been resolved and will remain until the DOJ decision is reversed or HPE abandons its takeover plans. If this limbo state continues much longer, it could cause serious damage to each company, so expect the two companies either to have merged or walked away from the deal by the next MWC.
• Cisco: Although still fluctuating between months, the long-term trend of Cisco stock over the past several years has been a steady rise, reaching a 15-year high of US$64.87 on February 14, 2025 (the highest since the burst of the dot-com bubble). The integration of the Catalyst and Meraki lines and its strength in areas such as AI have helped it earn this strong performance. Also on display at MWC25 was another reason for confidence in Cisco’s stock—the company’s renewed push to address the operator market, a segment that many of the company’s competitors have forsaken. Given that Cisco’s stock seems to have been rewarded by these moves, we can expect them to double down on this at next year’s MWC.
• Huawei: The Huawei booth at MWC25, which was more like a separate hall all to themselves, was, by far, the largest of any exhibitor. It also had a wealth of unique, home-grown innovation on display, including the dynamic-zoom smart antennas found within the AirEngine 6776-X6H. Yet, despite its strong in-house innovation, until recently, Huawei relied on Qualcomm chipsets for its high-end flagship and premium Wi-Fi Access Points (APs), although the licensing agreement underpinning this partnership has now come to a close. Given the breakneck pace of advancement and innovation within the Chinese chipset ecosystem, Huawei’s strategy is most likely to build its in-house capabilities at HiSilicon to a point where it can replace Qualcomm’s chips with those of HiSilicon, which are already used almost exclusively for the remainder of Huawei’s portfolio. Once this occurs, Huawei will likely be able to unlock some additional performance benefits, which it promotes as being possible when both an AP and client device are utilizing HiSilion chipsets. We may well hear more about this at MWC26.
• TP-Link: Historically, TP-Link focused on selling its equipment via retail (via local distributors such as Walmart or online channels such as Amazon), as opposed to directly to Internet Service Providers (ISPs). Yet, following the launch of TP-Link’s operator sub-brand Aginet in 2022, the company has successfully managed to expand its business with ISPs, with its Wi-Fi 7 Customer Premises Equipment (CPE) being deployed recently by Thailand ISP AIS and Singaporean ISP Singtel. TP-Link’s pivot was evident at MWC25, and given that ISPs are increasingly deploying more advanced (and thus, more costly) CPE in response to increasing inter-ISP competition and have a desperate need to raise the Average Revenue per User (ARPU), TP-Link will likely continue to place emphasis on the ISP market going forward. This will heighten the importance of trade shows like MWC to TP-Link, perhaps simultaneously lowering the importance of trade shows orientated toward consumers, such as the Consumer Electronics Show (CES).