Mobile World Capital Barcelona (MWCapital) has signed a collaboration agreement with the Institute of Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC) to develop projects and prototypes investigating the impact of 5G technology in the cities of the future.

MWCapital is an initiative that promotes the digital development of society and helps to improve people’s lives globally. With public and private support, MWCapital focuses on four areas: accelerating innovation through digital entrepreneurship; transforming the industry through digital technology; growing digital talent among new generations and professionals; and reflecting on the impact of technology on our society.

In particular, the first two projects to be developed will deal with high-precision digital manufacturing in a distributed manner and self-sufficient buildings. In the first case, we will study how the high-speed connectivity and low latency inherent in 5G allows for high-precision manufacturing, specifically in the field of advanced construction. The second project will develop a prototype of a distributed energy production network where 5G makes it possible to create a micronetwork of information that manages “the Internet of Energy”. These projects are intended to initiate research that aims to work towards designing a new generation of ecological buildings and neighbourhoods meeting the objective set by the European Union of achieving zero emissions cities.

Xavier Marcet, president of the IAAC, and Carlos Grau, CEO of MWCapital, signed the agreement virtually on June 10th. For their part, Eduard Martín, director of the 5G programme at Mobile World Capital Barcelona, and Vicente Guallart, director of the Valldaura Labs group and co-founder of the IAAC, have already begun working with their respective teams in order to present the first results of this collaboration during the next Mobile World Congress, to be held in March 2021.