Doha has wrapped up the biggest technology week in its calendar. The MWC26 Doha connectivity summit closed on Wednesday after three days of keynotes, exhibitions and deal making, drawing more than 10,000 attendees from 100 countries and territories to the Qatari capital.
The event, organised by the GSMA in partnership with Qatar’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, brought together senior industry leaders, policymakers and regulators. Delegates spent the three days debating how embedded intelligence, next generation infrastructure and national digital strategies are reshaping the role of the Middle East and North Africa in the global connectivity ecosystem.
What made this edition unusual was its neighbour. In a first of its kind co-location, the MWC26 Doha connectivity summit ran alongside the opening days of the ITU Plenipotentiary Conference, the UN agency’s supreme decision making gathering, known as PP-26. The overlap put the people who write global digital policy in the same halls as the operators, technology companies and investors expected to deliver it.
The numbers behind the MWC26 Doha connectivity summit
The GSMA’s figures sketch an event weighted towards decision makers. Fourteen per cent of attendees were C-suite executives, and 37 per cent were at director level or above. Sixty two per cent came from industries adjacent to the core mobile ecosystem, a sign of how far connectivity debates now reach beyond telecoms operators.
The Ministerial Programme convened 86 delegations, including 36 ministers and 34 heads of national regulatory authorities. In total, 74 countries and 12 intergovernmental organisations were represented. Across the show, 195 speakers took part in keynote sessions, summits and partner programmes, and around 100 exhibitors, sponsors and partners filled the floor.
Business was done as well. Forty two partnerships and announcements were signed in the event’s Announcement Lounge, and more than 220 media, content creators and industry analysts covered the gathering on site. Among the headline moments was a fireside discussion between GSMA director general Vivek Badrinath and ITU secretary general Doreen Bogdan-Martin, a pairing that would have been hard to stage anywhere other than the MWC26 Doha connectivity summit in this particular week.
Sianne Ryder, the GSMA’s CEO for events and industry services, said the co-location created something unique: policymakers and regulators sat side by side with industry leaders and innovators, producing sharper conversations and a clearer path from policy to progress. She thanked the hosts at the ministry and said the partnerships forged in Doha should deliver impact across the region and beyond.
Why the MWC26 Doha connectivity summit matters for Qatar
For Qatar, the week was a demonstration of strategy. The Gulf state has spent years building a calendar of global gatherings, from the FIFA World Cup to Web Summit Qatar, and the MWC26 Doha connectivity summit fits the same pattern: use major events to position Doha as a meeting point between regions and industries.
The numbers feed a national narrative. Qatar recently scored 98.4 out of 100 on the ITU’s ICT Development Index 2026, the sixth highest score among 159 economies, including a perfect score for universal connectivity. Officials have also pointed to the economic weight of its technology events, with the last edition of Web Summit Qatar credited with an impact of more than 1 billion Qatari riyals. A successful week strengthens the case that Doha belongs on the permanent circuit of global tech gatherings, alongside Barcelona and other established hosts.
The GSMA is already looking ahead. Its flagship MWC27 Barcelona runs from March 1 to 4, 2027, with registration open, and the organisation says it looks forward to welcoming the region’s connectivity ecosystem back to Doha from November 15 to 17, 2027.
Until then, the verdict on this edition will rest on follow through. Summits are judged less by attendance records than by whether the 42 partnerships signed in Doha turn into networks built, services launched and policies changed. On the evidence of this week, the MWC26 Doha connectivity summit has at least secured the region a louder voice in the rooms where those decisions start.