The 20th edition of the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona will serve as a stage to assess strength not only in technological terms but also geopolitically. Europe, in particular, will showcase to the world its progress in satellite footprint, regulation, and terrestrial connectivity. On the latter, Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefónica, TIM, and Vodafone said this week that at the event they will demonstrate how they federated their Edge environments so applications can be deployed across all their regional networks. This required using components developed under the Important Project of Common European Interest: Next Generation Cloud Infrastructure and Services (IPCEI-CIS), funded by the European Union (EU).

IPCEI-CIS is an EU funding vehicle designed to support research, development, and deployment of advanced Edge and cloud technologies across the continent. A total of 19 direct participants and another 90 ecosystem partners are undertaking projects spanning the entire Edge value chain, or the continuum between the network edge and the cloud. As part of the initiative, these companies are receiving €1.2 billion in direct state aid, with an additional €1.4 billion in private investment expected to be unlocked.

Other arenas where the global power struggle around technology will be on display include, first, the presentation by the European Space Agency, led by Laurent Jaffart, its director of Connectivity and Secure Communications; updates on EU Inc, the region’s common operating system, within the framework of 4YFN; and the fourth keynote of the opening day on digital sovereignty, featuring the CEOs of Telefónica, Eutelsat, and Deutsche Telekom on stage alongside Henna Virkkunen, Executive Vice President of the European Commission.