How War in the Middle East Impacted the World’s Largest Mobile Phone Show
A Tuesday in the middle of Mobile World Congress 2026three industry experts came together for a panel to discuss smart glasses and extended reality technology. But a fourth panel member, based in Dubai, was never able to attend the conference. Two days earlier, the United States and Israel launched air attacks on Iran, and flights were grounded across the Middle East.
Even thousands of miles away, in Barcelona, on the western Mediterranean Sea, the MWC has been affected by the conflict. While events and meetings at the world’s largest mobile technology conference went ahead as planned, despite the anxious awareness of larger geopolitical events, there were notable absences.
Some stands were empty and some planned meetings between absent participants did not take place. Exhibitors walked the halls and noted a reduced presence of Middle Eastern companies.
While the conflict was only beginning by the time MWC took place, it had already affected the participants and altered the experience. Although far from the fighting in the Middle East, the impact of the war was felt just as seriously in the middle of a conference on bringing humans together.
Xpanceo stand in hall 6 of MWC 2026. The prototypes which were supposed to arrive by plane from Dubai did not arrive.
The financial, emotional and mental cost of war at a technology conference
The fourth panelist on Tuesday’s panel was supposed to be Roman Axelrod, co-founder of Xpanceo, who would have likely discussed the smart contact lenses that the company intended to showcase in prototype form at MWC. But neither Axelrod nor the samples ever left Dubai, where the company is based. Conference attendees who passed by the Xpanceo booth were greeted by out-of-town employees and apologized for hastily making video demonstrations of the technology samples that were supposed to be on display.
I had already planned to chat with Valentyn S. Volkov, co-founder and CTO of Xpanceo, who also couldn’t make it to MWC. While the company was intentionally headquartered in Dubai as a reliable and predictable jurisdiction for business (and centrally located, with many business destinations within a 7-hour flight), the country falls within the airspace of the current conflict. As a result, businesses lose money, especially funds spent on MWC opportunities.
“We have already lost, I would say, a significant amount of resources – physical, mental and scientific – simply because we could not bring everyone to Barcelona. We could not bring our prototypes to Barcelona as planned,” Volkov told me.
Fortunately, Volkov was in a good mood when I chatted with him on Zoom via laptop at the Xpanceo booth. He was safe, noting that local authorities in Dubai provided “logistical security.”
Our conversation quickly turned to the smart contact lenses the company is working on, with plans to roll out working prototypes by the end of the year. As Volkov described their potential capabilities, they sounded like the next evolution of smart glasses, like the Google specs I saw at Google I/O last year, offering heads-up display information relayed from a nearby phone, and even potentially health data like glucose level readings taken from the lens’ contact with tears from the eye.
“These beauties were supposed to be shown for the very first time [at MWC]and we put a lot of effort and resources into it. It’s really bad luck,” Volkov said.
Thanks to modern network technology, Volkov and I were able to continue to have this virtual conversation – and fortunately, the war had not affected him or the infrastructure he was in. But anyone can tell you the benefit of having an exchange in person rather than on small screens. What was lost through the wires because Volkov was not there to demonstrate the features and concepts of Xpanceo products through body language and demonstration?
It’s not hard to imagine extending this to all the business conversations and networking opportunities lost to those whose flights have been canceled and lives on lockdown due to conflict in the Middle East. Some of these meetings could probably be moved to digital discussions like mine, but MWC is a show about making new in-person connections, discovering new devices, and catching up on the latest technology trends in the mobile and telecommunications industries.
But I met some participants who suffered the opposite fate, having left countries now subject to restricted airspace earlier than expected. They have arrived at MWC, but it is too early to say when they will be able to return home.
Some attendees and exhibitors were still using the GSMA Pavilion in Doha, the social meeting space for Middle East technology companies, to work and meet.
Stranded at MWC, return unknown
I sat down with Said Saidi, an exhibitor at the show, and chatted between his calls home. I couldn’t imagine the tension he was under with his family in Dubai and I wasn’t sure when he would be able to join them.
A UAE resident for 19 years, Saidi was comforted by being able to chat on the phone every few hours with his family, who he said were safe. Aside from the noise of the defense system and drones coming from Iran, his reports from home indicate that everyone is living in peace and not short of supplies, and that they have not experienced any major stress so far.
Saidi said this goes against misinformation on social media that people are stuck in the UAE without housing. As he said, and reports echoed, the government and hotels offered free stays to stranded travelers.
Saidi took an early flight to Barcelona the previous Friday, but most other Middle Eastern exhibitors usually fly out on Sunday, he said. By then, commercial flights from the region were largely grounded following the first US and Israeli strikes on Saturday morning. He said the regional impact of the air transport outage was brutal. After walking around the show floor twice, to the startup zone at the far end of the convention center, the presence of Middle Eastern attendees is “close to zero,” Saidi said.
While traveling to MWC, many meetings Saidi was supposed to have with peers from other Middle Eastern companies had to be canceled or held online. It’s a loss all around.
“Usually the main purpose of the show is to show that we are present, we are here, and also to meet new leads and new business,” Saidi said. While leaders can normally move within their own circles, at MWC they can be met on the show floor by anyone. “The exhibition is always a good opportunity to meet people, make a first handshake and build on that,” Saidi said.
In the startups section of MWC 2026, seven companies had planned to attend MWC 2026 on behalf of the Palestinian Association of Information Technology Companies, but only two of them had representatives who had found flights to arrive at the show.
I’m waiting for the limbo to dissipate, but the impact remains
In three days spent traveling through the MWC show, I tried to measure the extent of these absences. None was more evident than in the startup zone, 4YFN, which was filled with business representatives from all corners of the world – with the exception of a group representing the Palestinian Association of Information Technology Companies. Only two booths were occupied out of what was supposed to be seven, as the rest of the startup representatives were unable to fly to the show.
Representatives present politely declined to comment for this story and were unsure when they would be able to return.
Saidi said the same thing. Although he said his company was taking care of him and he felt totally relaxed as long as his family was safe in Dubai, he had no idea when he would be able to return home.
“I have no expectations,” Saidi said. “At this time we cannot predict anything.”
From Dubai, during our conversation, Xpanceo’s Volkov had a more optimistic outlook, with significant hope that the situation would stabilize within a week. But if it’s a prolonged problem, he said his company would be prepared for that, too. And work continues remotely in the meantime.
The war will likely impact the mobile industry beyond MWC. Analysts adjusted their previously gloomy forecasts for expected phone sales for 2026 to an even gloomy outlook, expecting a 13% decline for the year. They mainly blame the RAM shortage, which is plaguing the tech sector as AI data centers gobble up memory.
But when I spoke with Jeronimo Francisco of the International Data Corporation, he noted that the regional chaos caused by the war with Iran had contributed to this decline, at least in terms of disrupting supply chains, increasing the cost of oil, and forcing companies to find solutions to wartime bottlenecks.
“If there was no memory crisis, instead of the market falling 13%, it would fall 5% in the worst case, something like that,” Francisco said.
It was a poignant moment for the mobile industry. Even though the RAM shortage caused by the AI industry is poised to increase phone prices in 2026, MWC was flooded with corporate slogans in favor of AI agents and other generative AI applications. Satellite companies have heralded an era of growing connectivity beyond the reach of traditional cellular networks. Going to the show is an opportunity to catch wind of the exciting trends that await phone owners in the coming months.
But even when MWC feels like it’s in a bubble of wild news and enthusiastic predictions, the bubble is sometimes burst by world events that are significantly life-disrupting. At CNET, we’ve covered many of the most interesting discoveries we made at the biggest phone show of the year – but even when diving into the deepest phone dives, it’s important to remember the human impact of conflicts that reach thousands of miles to a convention center in a Catalan seaside town.
