Mobile World Capital Barcelona, the Barcelona City Council, and ACCIÓ brought together 26 Chinese companies in a closed-session event held during MWC Shanghai 2025 in Europe. The meeting gathered local companies with potential interest in entering the European market, specialising in technologies such as artificial intelligence, IoT, and 5G, as well as tech and consultancy services.
Under the title “Doing business in Europe: Barcelona and Catalonia as a thriving innovation hub,” the session featured the participation of MWCapital CEO Francesc Fajula; Head of Economic Promotion at the Barcelona City Council, Marc Unió; Senior FDI Consultant at the Shanghai Catalonia Trade & Investment Office, Paggy Zhang; Head of the Tech Hub at Mobile World Capital, Tomeu Sabater; and was moderated by Yuan Gao from the Barcelona City Council’s Asian Office.
From the Chinese market to Europe
Following presentations by Catalan institutions, companies like TuGe Tech, STEX-INTERNATIONAL, CloudRAN.AI, GlobalGragon, and Firoam introduced their work and expressed interest in expanding to Europe, specifically to Barcelona or Catalonia.
Other participants included companies such as Huawei and Beijing Baicell, along with various other Chinese tech firms. These organisations joined the Q&A session, which focused mainly on exploring how to adapt their business models to the local Catalan market context and characteristics.
Barcelona, an international tech capital
During the session, Mobile World Capital CEO Francesc Fajula outlined Barcelona’s key strengths as an international tech hub, categorised into three pillars: its ability to generate and attract specialised global talent; the strong presence of international tech hubs; and the scientific-technological ecosystem in the city.
Barcelona currently has over 122,000 digital professionals. Over the past five years, the city has become a magnet for global professionals in emerging technologies such as NewSpace, semiconductors, and blockchain, among others. The latest Talent Arena event, attended by over 20,000 people, further highlighted Barcelona’s position as a global digital talent capital.
In terms of attracting international innovation projects, Catalonia is now home to 160 international tech hubs, with Barcelona as the main hotspot. These multinational hubs employ more than 35,000 professionals and contribute over €3.6 billion in economic impact to the city.
Finally, Barcelona is a global reference in deep tech, especially in sectors such as health, industry, and energy. These technologies primarily originate from spin-offs tied to universities and research centers. Spain hosts more than 1,200 spin-offs, over 12,200 professionals work in this sector, and they are the source of patents and innovations that impact the economy and society at large. Fajula stated, “The MWC has played a crucial role in the growth and consolidation of Barcelona as a major international tech hub over the past 20 years.”
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