From Talk to Deployment: Altera at Mobile World Congress 2026 - From Talk to Deployment: Altera at Mobile World Congress 2026 Reflecting on MWC26, a few clear themes emerged. AI dominated the narrative for operators, though adoption remains focused on near-term efficiency gains rather than transformative use cases. 6G was visible on the horizon but still distant, with the industry's attention firmly on monetizing 5G Advanced. Meanwhile, convergence between terrestrial and satellite networks is accelerating, as LEO scale reshapes competition through massive capital deployment and vertical integration. This year for Altera it wasn’t about showing what’s possible; it was about showing what’s in deployment. Altera showcased several live demos and announcements that mark a genuine inflection point for the wireless industry. For the past few years, the conversations at MWC around massive MIMO and satellite communications followed a familiar pattern: promising technology, exciting roadmaps, timelines that kept slipping. This year was different. OEMs and operators walked into our meeting room not asking if they should build, but how fast they can deploy. That shift, from exploration to execution, shaped everything we showcased at MWC 2026. Here’s a look at the major themes. Altera and Broadcom: Validated Interoperability for Next-Gen Radios The headline announcement was our partnership with Broadcom, centered on how to enable cost and power efficient mMIMO and Giga MIMO solutions for FR1 and FR3 bands. Altera and Broadcom proved interoperability between Altera’s Agilex® 7 FPGAs and Broadcom’s new BroadPeak™ SoC - the industry’s first 6G-ready digital front-end for massive MIMO and remote radio head applications. We validated JESD204C connectivity at 32.44 Gbps across wideband radio configurations. The combined platform supports O-RAN 7.2x splits from 8T8R all the way to 128T128R, with up to 40% power reduction versus existing solutions. Both companies exhibited partner radios live at MWC. This matters because radio OEMs need a silicon foundation they can trust for carrier-grade 5G-Advanced and early 6G deployments. With Altera’s programmable compute and Broadcom’s RF leadership now validated together, equipment manufacturers can build scalable, power-efficient radios with advanced beamforming and AI-assisted signal processing, without waiting for the next generation of custom silicon. Read the full press release → Massive MIMO: From Whiteboard to Whitebox One of the strongest signals at MWC26 was the number of conversations that have shifted from “we’re exploring mMIMO” to “we’re building mMIMO and we need a platform that we can leverage to quickly build and deploy commercial solutions.” After years of industry talk, operators are now deploying 32T32R systems at scale - and they need platforms that can get to production fast. That’s exactly what our Olympia Bridge solution does: a 32TR mMIMO whitebox on Agilex 7 FPGAs with a pre-integrated and validated O-RAN, beamforming, LL1, and DxC implementation that is highly optimized for cost and power. It’s scalable and built for carrier-grade power efficiency. Partners are already using it to build production of 5G radios. On the lower-end, our Sail River O-RAN Macro radio reference design, originally built for 4TR/8TR O-RU configurations on Agilex 7, has now also been successfully ported to Agilex 5, opening up a more cost-effective path for macro and micro cell deployments. Satellite Communications: NTN Goes from “Someday” to “Now” The other major momentum shift was in Non-Terrestrial Networks. Satellite communications was one of the hottest topics at MWC this year, and for good reason: operators and governments are investing heavily in LEO and GEO satellite constellations, and they need ground station and terminal architectures that can keep pace. We demonstrated our NTN Satellite Modem Proof of Concept - a satellite ground station reference design built on the same 5G macrocell FPGA platform that powers our O-RAN reference designs. The same programmable silicon that runs terrestrial 5G can be adapted for non-terrestrial use cases, meaning operators can unify their hardware investment across both domains. This is a big deal for anyone planning a converged terrestrial/NTN network strategy - and based on our meeting conversations, that’s a growing number of organizations. Looking forward, Altera is committed to continue developing additional reference designs for Satellite Payloads including feeder link, user link and Inter Satellite Link (ISM) leveraging Altera’s LowPHY, Beamforming and LDPC IP libraries. AI for RAN: Five Live Demos We brought five AI demos to the booth, all running on Altera FPGAs with no external accelerator required. The reaction from customers was consistently the same: they hadn’t seriously considered running AI inference directly on FPGA, and the cost, power, and latency advantages surprised them. Here’s what we showed: Channel Estimation: AI/ML-based channel estimation running in real time on FPGA, replacing traditional heuristic approaches with data-driven optimization at the edge and reducing CSI signaling overhead dramatically. AI Sensing: RF sensing capabilities powered by AI on Altera FPGAs, enabling detection and classification of objects and movement using the same radio hardware. Agilex 5 FIR Tensor: Showcasing the Tensor DSP block performance for FIR filter acceleration on Agilex 5, demonstrating a 67% reduction in DSP block utilization. Small Language Model (Tiny Stories): Lightweight AI inference running entirely on FPGA, proving that on-device intelligence is feasible even in constrained RAN environments. Advanced Holdover: AI replaces costly OCXOs with TCXOs while maintaining holdover accuracy, enabling 30–50% oscillator BOM savings. We’re actively integrating several of these AI capabilities into our mMIMO and macro cell reference designs. AI at the RAN edge isn’t a future promise - it’s running on FPGA silicon today. Watch the Demos All of our MWC demo videos are now live. Each one is a short, focused walkthrough of the technology running on Altera silicon. Watch the full playlist on YouTube → Ecosystem Strength: Partners Building on Altera Beyond our own announcements, MWC reinforced the strength of the ecosystem building on Altera platforms. NEC’s 5G Massive MIMO radio achieved significant throughput gains with over 40% power reduction on Agilex 7. Dell’s Open RAN platforms use Altera Agilex 7 SoC FPGAs for secure, adaptable 5G infrastructure. The theme was consistent: partners are choosing FPGA-based platforms because they need the flexibility to adapt to standards that are still evolving. TCS also published a joint whitepaper with us detailing a low-PHY software stack reference design optimized for Altera FPGAs, demonstrating Dynamic Spectrum Sharing and high-throughput performance for O-RAN developers looking to accelerate their product development. Go Deeper For those who want the technical details behind what we showed at MWC, here are the key resources: Altera MWC 2026 Press Release - Full announcement on the Broadcom partnership, NEC collaboration, and wireless infrastructure strategy. The FPGA Advantage for Secure 5G Infrastructure - A Dell Perspective - How Dell’s Open RAN radio platforms use Altera Agilex 7 SoC FPGAs. Dell 5G Whitepaper - Technical deep-dive on Dell’s 5G infrastructure architecture and FPGA integration. TCS Whitepaper: Low-PHY Reference Design on Altera FPGAs - Reference design for physical layer software stack with Dynamic Spectrum Sharing. Altera Wireless Solutions - Full overview of reference designs, AI demos, enablement packages, and partner ecosystems. Ready to continue the conversation? Whether you’re building mMIMO radios, exploring satellite architectures, or evaluating AI at the RAN edge —- reach out at Connect with Altera or visit our Wireless Solutions page.