The Mobile World Congress has always been about phones. This year, it was about the machines that make phones smart.
MWC Barcelona 2026, which ran from March 2 to 5, was dominated by AI infrastructure. Supermicro showed off server racks running AI-Radio Access Networks at booth 2D35, partnering with Nokia, SK Telecom, and Telenor. NVIDIA brought its AI-native platforms alongside T-Mobile, SoftBank, and Deutsche Telekom.
From server racks to futures contracts
CME Group launched the first compute futures contracts on May 12, 2026, focused specifically on GPU rental as an asset class. In English: you can now bet on the future price of renting a graphics card the same way traders have bet on wheat and crude oil for decades.
CME isn’t alone in this push. The Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) and ORNN are developing their own GPU compute futures products. China’s Shanghai Futures Exchange is going a step further, creating derivatives linked to AI token pricing.
