MWC Shanghai 2026 concluded last week, with 37 300 attendees across three days of exhibitions and conference sessions that reflected how the global mobile industry is increasingly repositioning itself around artificial intelligence (AI), advanced connectivity and new commercial models.
Organised by the GSM Association (GSMA), the event attracted participants from 143 countries and territories, with international attendance increasing 33% year-on-year, the organisation said.
More than 400 exhibitors, sponsors and partners participated, while approximately 300 speakers took part across keynote sessions and industry summits.
Although mobile connectivity remained central to the event, discussions and demonstrations extended well beyond traditional telecoms infrastructure.
AI deployment, 5G-Advanced, early 6G development, robotics, satellite connectivity and emerging compute infrastructure featured across exhibition halls and conference stages.
A recurring theme throughout the event was the idea that telecommunications networks are evolving from connectivity platforms into infrastructure layers for AI applications and digital services.
John Hoffman, CEO of GSMA, said: “MWC 26 Shanghai has confirmed to me that our industry is undergoing a fundamental shift. 5G and 5G-Advanced are the foundational layer of the AI stack. They provide the capacity, latency and reliability that increasingly demanding systems and services depend on.
“This week we’ve seen how it’s fuelling new ideas across industry verticals, such as manufacturing, healthcare and the low altitude economy.”
One of the event’s more public-facing showcases was the Humanoid Robot Football Penalties Challenge, where humanoid robots participated in a football demonstration supported by AI-generated music, automated commentary and digital advertising systems.
Another demonstration by the Pudong Government showcased co-ordinated autonomous operations across multiple platforms. In the exercise, a drone, autonomous boat, vehicle and humanoid robot completed a package delivery sequence without direct human involvement.
The demonstrations reflected a broader trend visible throughout the event – the growing focus on embodied AI, where intelligent systems move beyond software interfaces into physical machines and operational environments.
Conference discussions also focused on how operators intend to commercialise these developments.
Topics across keynote and conference stages included enterprise transformation through AI, deployment economics for 5G-Advanced, convergence between terrestrial and satellite-based communications networks, and the role of robotics and AI agents in future service delivery.
Token monetisation
During the event, Huawei used the platform to outline its view that telecoms operators will increasingly generate revenue from AI-driven services and computing infrastructure, rather than traditional connectivity products alone.
Eric Yang, president of Huawei Carrier Business, said operators should adapt products, services and infrastructure to support what the company describes as “token monetisation” – a model linked to charging for AI consumption and computing services.
Huawei’s position is that AI workloads will create new demand for integrated computing, storage and network capabilities delivered through telecoms operators.
The company outlined use cases spanning consumer and enterprise markets, including AI-enabled personal assistants, smart home services, digital employees and integrated compute-network services for businesses.
Huawei also presented updates on infrastructure designed to support AI deployment.
At the event, Huawei and China Mobile Communications announced what they described as China’s first live-network validation of an AI inference acceleration solution in a carrier environment.
The deployment combined Huawei’s OceanStor A800 storage platform, Ascend A3 SuperPoD infrastructure and Unified Cache Manager technology.
According to the companies, testing focused on long-sequence AI inference workloads – computational tasks that process large volumes of contextual information for applications such as code generation and multi-turn dialogue systems.
Huawei says the validation recorded improvements in token throughput of up to 372%.
The tests were conducted using the vLLM-Ascend framework and included workloads across models, including MiniMax M2.5 and GLM-5.1.
According to the results presented, performance gains increased as context lengths expanded, suggesting greater efficiency under more demanding inference scenarios.
Huawei positioned the results as evidence that externalised cache management and compute-storage integration may help address performance limitations associated with memory constraints in AI systems.
Beyond tech
The company also outlined several infrastructure priorities that it believes will support AI-era services, including enhanced uplink capabilities, distributed computing networks, lower-latency interconnection, AI-optimised data centre facilities and orchestration platforms for large-scale AI deployment.
Beyond technology announcements, MWC Shanghai also highlighted the growing diversity of participation across the event.
GSMA says 33% of attendees came from sectors outside mobile, while 35% were director level and above. Of those senior attendees, 36% were C-suite executives.
It adds that the conference programme also reflected broader participation trends, with around 40% of speakers coming from outside the core mobile ecosystem and 40% representing international markets.
Policy and regulation remained on the agenda through the GSMA Policy Leaders Forum, which hosted 39 delegations from 35 countries and territories, alongside four intergovernmental organisations.
MWC Shanghai also introduced the inaugural GLOMO Awards Asia.
Among the awards announced, Lenovo received Best in Show – Exhibition Stand, while the Vivo X Fold6 was named Best in Show Product.
Sihan Bo Chen, head of greater China at the GSMA, said: “China’s mobile industry has always moved fast, but this week showed us that in the AI era the industry’s speed is now being felt at both a regional and global scale.
“There’s no better place to show the world what China and Asia’s mobile industry is capable of, and this year’s MWC proved that across every keynote, summit and showcase. Congratulations to the winners of the Humanoid Robot Football Penalties Challenge. And, thank you to all our attendees, speakers, exhibitors, sponsors and partners for joining us. See you at MWC27 Shanghai.”
According to GSMA, keynotes and event content generated approximately one million views across digital channels and media partner platforms.
Share
