Talent Arena will return to Barcelona for its third edition from March 1 to March 3, bringing major technology figures from Google, Mistral, and Hugging Face to the Fira de Barcelona Montjuïc venue, according to event organizers.
Mobile World Capital Announces Return to Montjuïc
The digital talent event, which operates alongside the Mobile World Congress, will occupy the entirety of Hall 8 at Montjuïc, covering roughly 14,000 square meters of exhibition space. Mobile World Capital announced the dates and details following substantial growth in past editions, which organizers say drew more than 25,000 attendees to the same venue. Laia Corbella, general director of MWCapital, described the upcoming conference as a key competitive factor for Barcelona, emphasizing its role in helping the city generate, retain, and attract digital talent.
Global Artificial Intelligence and Quantum Leaders Set to Speak
The speaker lineup features prominent researchers and engineers across artificial intelligence, hardware development, and computing. Sergio Boixo, who leads quantum computing at Google, is scheduled to speak alongside Patrick von Platen, an AI researcher at French artificial intelligence developer Mistral. Irene Solaiman, global policy director at Hugging Face, will also present. Additional confirmed speakers include Ken Kutaragi, creator of the PlayStation video game console; Edwin Catmull, co-founder of Pixar; Daniela Rus, director of the computer science and artificial intelligence laboratory at MIT; and Radia Perlman, the engineer known as “the mother of the internet”.
Industrial Technology Giants and Funding Milestones
Alongside individual speakers, prominent hardware and software enterprises will maintain a presence on the exhibition floor. These include ASML, l’empresa més gran d’Europa, encarregada de fabricar les màquines de fotolitografia essencials per fabricar els microxips; la catalana Openchip; i Multiverse Computing, una companyia basca d’IA i computació quàntica que va aixecar recentment una ronda de finançament de 500 milions d’euros. Sianne Ryder, executive director of events for GSMA—the mobile industry trade association that organizes the Mobile World Congress—stated that the event addresses ongoing skill gaps in the industry. Ryder noted that the industry’s future relies equally on human capabilities and technical innovation.
Workshops, Hackathons, and Event Logistics
Beyond keynote presentations, Talent Arena will host collaborative work sessions and hackathons designed to let participants build applications on-site. While organizers have not issued a precise attendance forecast for the upcoming gathering, Corbella indicated that previous participation levels guarantee a similar turnout, with a primary institutional focus placed on quality over sheer volume. The presentation event in Barcelona was attended by Jordi Valls, fourth deputy mayor of Barcelona, and Maria Galindo, secretary for digital policies for the Generalitat of Catalonia. Neither official spoke during the briefing due to an ongoing period of institutional mourning following a railway accident in Toledo.
