As every year, Mobile World Capital Barcelona (MWCapital) transforms its Mobile World Congress stand in Hall 6 of the Gran Via Fairgrounds into an immersive experience showcasing several disruptive projects. This year, the major hits They revolve around health and agriculture.

Francesc Fajula is the CEO of Mobile World Capital Barcelona, ​​the foundation dedicated to driving technological transformation in the city and closely linked to the Mobile World Congress (MWC), the technology and connectivity event held in Barcelona from Monday, March 2nd to Thursday, March 6th. In a conversation on the ARA radio show, Fajula explains the legacy of Mobile World Capital Barcelona's 20 years in the city and emphasizes that the city is where the future of European technology will be decided. Far from accepting that Europe has missed the boat in terms of technological sovereignty, he argues that the Catalan ecosystem "has everything" because it is a driving force.

I interview Marc Pérez (Barcelona, ​​1995) one afternoon as he prepares the stocks for the dishes he'll be cooking on Sunday, March 1st, for the Mobile World Congress opening luncheon. The dining room is packed until the following day, when they'll reopen for lunch service. Both Marc and his partner, head waitress Tània Doblas (Cádiz, 1988), are thrilled to have been tasked with catering for 400 people. The challenge is exciting and stimulating: they're going from preparing meals for 36-40 people, the capacity of La Sosenga (c. Amargós, 8, Barcelona), to multiplying that number tenfold. And all with meticulously crafted, thoughtful dishes, just as the restaurant's cuisine has defined it since its opening in 2023.

Catalonia already hosts 203 hubs International technology centers, after 12 more have arrived in the last year. We are talking about centers of foreign companies that export digital services or products from the Catalan capital to the rest of the world and that now employ 46,080 workers, 10% more than in 2024. This data is collected in the fourth edition of the reportTech Hubs OverviewThe initiative, presented this Tuesday, is promoted by Mobile World Capital Barcelona (MWCapital) in collaboration with ACCIÓ, the Catalan government's business competitiveness agency, and the Barcelona City Council's Department of International Economic Promotion. In 2025 alone, 4,443 new jobs were created in these sectors. hubswhich expect to reach a workforce of 51,526 employees this year. "Many are professionals we must import because we don't have the capacity to generate qualified talent at the rate these companies are looking for," explained Francesc Fajula, director of MWCapital. In fact, according to the results of previous editions of the report, nearly 38% of these workers are of foreign origin, and the rest are local. That is to say, these centers have attracted approximately 17,500 foreign professionals.

Barcelona added 7,423 new digital professionals in 2024, representing a 6% increase, according to data from the 7th report.Digital Talent Overview, prepared by Mobile World Capital Barcelona and presented this Thursday. With this growth, the city now has 129,608 ICT specialists, representing 6% of the Catalan capital's workforce. According to the report, new jobs in Barcelona's digital sector are growing six times faster than the city's overall labor market, which registered an increase of 0.96% in 2024. Furthermore, it maintains that a third of professionals come from outside Catalonia, demonstrating the city's ability to attract talent but also its shortage.

Antonio Torralba (Madrid, 1971) was fascinated by artificial intelligence (AI) from a young age. "I'd always liked computers; not for playing games or programming, I was really interested in AI in particular," he explains in a conversation with ARA. within the framework of the Talent Arena organized by Mobile World Capital Barcelona. At just 15 years old, he began working with some language models, and this obsession has led him to become a guru in this field. He is a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), directs the MIT School of AI, and was also co-director of the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab. He also serves on Spain's International Advisory Board on AI. He studied in Barcelona and France, but in 2000 he completed postdoctoral training at MIT and then settled in Boston.

A stand inspired by the classical agoras and porticoed squares in Hall 6 of the Fira is the gateway to Living in tech, The Mobile World Capital Barcelona (MWCapital) proposal at the MWC is to show in an immersive way how "technologies are transforming people's daily lives and shaping new urban environments." The MWCapital stand becomes a large digital agora where visitors can interact with innovations that drive social well-being, sustainability and economic growth.

The agreement to extend Mobile World Congress's (MWC) stay in Barcelona until at least 2030 was signed this morning. The new contract will be extended yearly automatically from the next decade onwards, provided one of the parties does not wish to terminate the agreement. This will make the Catalan capital a permanent venue for the congress. To make the agreement possible, the administrations (City Council, Generalitat and central government) have had to update their contributions to MWCapital, which will go from €5m each to €8m. "It is impossible to understand MWC without Barcelona or Barcelona without MWC," said GSMA Director General Mats Granryd.