On a Tuesday in the course of Mobile World Congress 2026, three {industry} specialists gathered for a panel to speak about smart glasses and prolonged actuality tech. However a fourth member of the panel, who was based mostly in Dubai, by no means made it to the convention. Two days earlier than, the US and Israel launched airborne assaults on Iran, and flights had been grounded all through the Center East.
Even hundreds of miles away in Barcelona, on the western fringe of the Mediterranean Sea, MWC was affected by the battle. Whereas occasions and conferences on the world’s largest cellular tech convention proceeded as deliberate, albeit below the anxious consciousness of bigger geopolitical occasions, there have been notable absences.
Some cubicles stood empty, and a few conferences scheduled between absent attendees weren’t held. Exhibitors walked the halls and noticed a diminished presence from Center Japanese firms.
Whereas the battle was simply starting as MWC occurred, it had already affected attendees and adjusted the expertise. Whereas distant from the combating within the Center East, the conflict’s affect was simply as significantly felt in the course of a convention about bringing people collectively.
Xpanceo’s sales space in Corridor 6 at MWC 2026. The prototypes that had been alleged to be flown in from Dubai did not arrive.
The monetary, emotional and psychological price of conflict on a tech convention
The fourth panelist on Tuesday’s panel was alleged to be Roman Axelrod, cofounder of Xpanceo, who would have probably mentioned the sensible contact lenses the corporate supposed to point out off in prototype type at MWC. However neither Axelrod nor the samples ever left Dubai, the place the corporate is predicated. Convention attendees who walked by Xpanceo’s sales space had been greeted by staff who had flown in from elsewhere and apologized that that they had solely unexpectedly made video demonstrations of the know-how samples that had been alleged to be on show.
I had already deliberate to speak with Valentyn S. Volkov, co-founder and CTO of Xpanceo, who likewise did not make it to MWC. Whereas the corporate was deliberately headquartered in Dubai as a dependable and predictable jurisdiction for enterprise (in addition to centrally situated, with many enterprise locations inside a 7-hour flight), the nation falls inside the airspace of the present battle. Consequently, companies are shedding cash, particularly funds spent on alternatives at MWC.
“We already form of misplaced, I’d say, a big quantity of sources — bodily, psychological, scientific sources — just because we couldn’t get everybody to Barcelona. We couldn’t get our prototypes to Barcelona as deliberate,” Volkov instructed me.
Thankfully, Volkov was in good spirits after I chatted with him over Zoom through a laptop computer in Xpanceo’s sales space. He was secure, noting that native authorities in Dubai had been offering “logistic safeness.”
Our chat rapidly turned to the sensible contact lenses that the corporate is engaged on, with plans to roll out functioning prototypes by the tip of the 12 months. As Volkov described their potential capabilities, they seemed like the following evolution of sensible glasses, just like the Google Specs that I noticed at Google I/O final 12 months, providing heads-up show info relayed from a close-by telephone, and even probably well being information like glucose stage readings taken from the lens’ contact with the attention’s tears.
“These beauties had been alleged to be proven for the very first time [at MWC], and we put a lot of effort and sources into that. It is fully unhealthy luck,” Volkov stated.
Because of fashionable community know-how, Volkov and I had been nonetheless in a position to have this digital dialog — and happily, the conflict had not affected him or the infrastructure the place he was. However anybody can let you know the worth of getting an in-person alternate over one on small screens. What was misplaced by means of the wires as a result of Volkov wasn’t there to reveal options and ideas of Xpanceo’s merchandise by means of physique language and demonstration?
It isn’t arduous to think about scaling that as much as all of the enterprise conversations and networking alternatives misplaced to these whose flights had been canceled and lives locked down because of the battle within the Center East. A few of these conferences may probably be shifted to digital chats like mine, however MWC is a present about making new connections in individual, seeing new units and getting up to date on the most recent tech traits throughout the cellular and telecom industries.
However I met some attendees who had been struggling the alternative destiny, having flown out early from nations now in restricted airspace. They made it to MWC, however it’s too early to inform after they can fly house.
Some attendees and exhibitors nonetheless used the GSMA Doha Pavilion, the social assembly area for Center Japanese tech firms, to work and meet.
Stranded at MWC, return unknown
I sat down with Mentioned Saidi, an exhibitor on the present, and chatted in between his calls house. I could not think about the pressure he was below with household again in Dubai and no clear concept of when he’d be capable to rejoin them.
A resident of the United Arab Emirates for 19 years, Saidi was comforted to have the ability to chat together with his household on the telephone each few hours, who he stated had been secure. Other than noise made by the protection system and drones coming from Iran, his stories from house stated everybody resides peacefully and has no scarcity of provides, they usually have up to now had no main stress.
Saidi defined that this was counter to misinformation being unfold on social media that claims individuals have been caught within the UAE with out lodging. As he stated, and reports have echoed, the federal government and accommodations have supplied stranded vacationers with free stays.
Saidi caught an early flight out to Barcelona the earlier Friday, however most different exhibitors from the Center East normally fly out on Sunday, he stated. By then, industrial flights from the world had been largely grounded following the preliminary strikes by the US and Israel on Saturday morning. He stated the affect of this region-wide air journey blackout was stark. After strolling across the present flooring twice, even all the best way out to the startup space on the far finish of the conference middle, the presence of attendees from the Center East is “close to zero,” Saidi stated.
Whereas he made it to MWC, most of the conferences Saidi was alleged to have with friends from different Center Japanese firms needed to be canceled or held on-line. It is a loss throughout.
“Often, the primary goal of the exhibition is to point out that we’re current, we’re there, and in addition to fulfill new leads and new enterprise,” Saidi stated. Whereas executives could usually transfer in their very own circles, at MWC, they are often met on the present flooring by anybody. “The exhibition is at all times a great likelihood to fulfill individuals and try this first handshake and construct on it,” Saidi stated.
In MWC 2026’s startup part, seven firms had deliberate to attend MWC 2026 from the Palestinian Info Expertise Affiliation of Firms, however solely two had representatives discover flights to reach on the present.
Ready for the limbo to carry, however the affect stays
In three days of working across the MWC present flooring, I attempted to gauge the scope of those absences. None was extra apparent than within the startup space, 4YFN, which was crammed with firm representatives from each nook of the Earth — besides a strand representing the Palestinian Info Expertise Affiliation of Firms. Simply two cubicles had been manned out of what was alleged to be seven, with the remainder of the startup representatives unable to fly to the present.
The representatives who had been there politely declined to remark for this story and weren’t positive after they’d be capable to fly again.
Saidi stated the identical. Whereas he asserted that his firm was caring for him, and that he felt completely relaxed so long as his household was secure again in Dubai, he had no inkling of when he’d be capable to return house.
“I’ve zero expectations,” Saidi stated. “At this time limit, we can not predict something.”
From inside Dubai, throughout our dialog, Xpanceo’s Volkov had a extra optimistic outlook, with vital hope that the state of affairs would stabilize inside per week. But when it’s a extended subject, he stated his firm can be ready for that, too. And work is continuous remotely within the meantime.
The conflict is more likely to have an effect on the cellular {industry} past MWC. Analysts have adjusted their beforehand dim projection on 2026’s anticipated telephone gross sales to a fair bleaker outlook, anticipating a 13% drop over the 12 months. Largely, they blame the RAM shortage, which is plaguing the tech {industry} as AI data centers gobble up memory.
However after I chatted with Worldwide Information Company’s Jeronimo Francisco, he famous that the regional chaos of the conflict with Iran contributed to that drop, no less than when it comes to disrupting provide chains, growing the price of oil and forcing firms to seek out workarounds for wartime bottlenecks.
“If there was no reminiscence disaster, as a substitute of the market dropping 13% it could drop 5 within the worst-case situation, one thing like that,” Francisco stated.
It was a poignant second for the cellular {industry}. Even because the AI industry-caused RAM scarcity is poised to extend telephone costs in 2026, MWC was awash in firm slogans embracing AI agents and different purposes of generative AI. Satellite tv for pc firms heralded the period of accelerating connectivity past the vary of conventional cell networks. Going to the present is a chance to catch wind of thrilling traits awaiting telephone house owners within the months to come back.
However even when MWC seems like being in a bubble of wonky information and enthusiastic predictions, generally the bubble is popped by world occasions that considerably disrupt lives. At CNET, now we have lined a whole lot of the good discoveries we made on the largest telephone present of the 12 months — however even immersed within the deepest telephone dives, it is vital to recollect the human affect of conflicts that attain hundreds of miles to a conference middle in a Catalonian seashore city.
