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GSMA MWC BARCELONA BRINGS INDUSTRIES TOGETHER FOR FOUR DAYS OF DISCUSSION AND DEBATE ON THE FUTURE OF CONNECTIVITY

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MWC Barcelona 2024 welcomes the most iconic names in connectivity for nine keynote sessions; event features include 4YFN, Connected Industries, Journey to the Future, GSMA Foundry and the GSMA Ministerial Programme

BARCELONA, Spain, Feb. 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — GSMA MWC Barcelona 2024 returned to the Fira de Barcelona today, marking the beginning of the world’s largest and most influential connectivity event.

Hosted by the GSMA, MWC Barcelona convenes leaders from the global mobile ecosystem and adjacent industries for four days of networking, driving new business and delving into the latest trends shaping the future of connectivity.

Mats Granryd, Director General of the GSMA, said, “It is fantastic to be here with you today at the opening of MWC in beautiful Barcelona! With over half of our attendees coming from beyond the core mobile ecosystem, MWC no longer represents just one industry. As connectivity brings us together, technology opens possibilities – with connectivity driving a fusion of technology and purpose across all sectors, enabling new possibilities. This week is all about exploring the future’s potential for businesses and society.”

Industry leaders and innovators on the MWC Main Stage

MWC Barcelona welcomes some of the most respected names in connectivity as keynote speakers, representing leading figures from business, government, academia, and non-government organisations.

Among the sessions taking place at the MWC Main Stage on Day 1 is an exclusive gathering of the CEOs at Europe’s largest mobile operators – Tim Höttges, CEO of Deutsche Telekom; Christel Heydemann, CEO of Orange; José María Álvarez-Pallete, Chairman & CEO of Telefónica; and Margherita Della Valle, Group CEO of Vodafone Group – from 4:30-5:00pm CET.

The keynote will explore the state of the mobile industry in Europe, the need for policy change to support infrastructure investments, the transition to green energy, and the importance of fostering industry-wide collaborations such as the GSMA Open Gateway.

José María Álvarez-Pallete, Chairman of the GSMA Board and Chairman & CEO of Telefónica, said, “In April this year, we celebrate 100 years that Telefónica has been bringing people closer through the power of connectivity. As Telefónica has changed with the times, so too has our industry which now benefits every business and individual on the planet. At MWC Barcelona 2024, you will see how collaboration and connected innovations are driving positive societal change that will help us realise the future’s potential over the next 100 years.”

GSMA Open Gateway: Unlocking the potential of 5G

The GSMA outlined the progress the industry and its partners are making in unlocking the full potential of 5G and commercialising network APIs through the GSMA Open Gateway initiative.

Unveiled at MWC Barcelona 2023, the Open Gateway is designed to accelerate the growth of digital services and apps by providing developers with universal access to operator networks. Over the last 12 months, 47 mobile operator groups – representing 239 mobile networks and 65% of global connections – have now signed up to the initiative.

Working with technology partners including AWS, Infobip, Microsoft, Nokia and Vonage, a total of 94 APIs are now commercially available to enterprise developers in 21 markets across Africa, Asia-Pacific, Europe, the Middle East and the Americas.

Purposes for which APIs have recently been brought to market include fraud prevention and identity verification.

Mobile Economy Report 2024

To mark the opening of MWC Barcelona, the GSMA launched its annual Mobile Economy Report. It spotlights the latest trends shaping the global mobile ecosystem and recommends areas of investment to help the industry expand mobile access and improve service quality. Key findings include:

5G will account for over half (51%) of total mobile connections by 2029 and reach 56% adoption by the end of the decade.58% of the world’s population were using mobile internet at the end of 2023, representing 4.7 billion users and an increase of 2.1 billion since 2015.
– 3 billion people are still not using mobile internet despite living in an area covered by mobile broadband networks (the “Usage Gap”), underscoring the urgency of addressing barriers to adoption highlighted in the GSMA’s “Breaking Barriers” campaign, such as handset affordability and literacy/digital skills.Mobile technologies and services generated 5.4% of global GDP in 2023, a contribution that amounted to $5.7 trillion of economic value.5G is expected to benefit the global economy by more than $930 billion in 2030, of which the primary beneficiaries are expected to be manufacturing (36%), public administration (15%) and the services (10%) industries.

GSMA Ministerial Programme

The GSMA Ministerial Programme is the world’s largest gathering of policymakers and industry leaders that enable the digital economy. Ministers, heads of regulatory authorities and policymakers come to MWC every year to meet with mobile industry CEOs and senior representatives of international organisations, share knowledge, and evolve priority policy and regulatory issues.

New and returning features for MWC Barcelona 2024 include the Talent Arena by Mobile World Capital Barcelona in Hall 3; the startup and innovation platform, 4YFN, which celebrates its 10th anniversary edition in Halls 8.0 and 8.1; Connected Industries and GSMA Foundry on the GSMA Pavilion in Hall 4; Journey to the Future in Hall 6.

The MWC Barcelona keynotes and content from the Debate Stage will be live streamed from the MWC website and app, as well as from Mobile World Live. All of this content and the conference sessions will be available on demand on the MWC website. 

Find the latest news and information live from the MWC Barcelona Press Zone.

About GSMA

The GSMA is a global organisation unifying the mobile ecosystem to discover, develop and deliver innovation foundational to positive business environments and societal change. Our vision is to unlock the full power of connectivity so that people, industry, and society thrive. Representing mobile operators and organisations across the mobile ecosystem and adjacent industries, the GSMA delivers for its members across three broad pillars: Connectivity for Good, Industry Services and Solutions, and Outreach. This activity includes advancing policy, tackling today’s biggest societal challenges, underpinning the technology and interoperability that make mobile work, and providing the world’s largest platform to convene the mobile ecosystem at the MWC and M360 series of events.

We invite you to find out more at gsma.com.

 

SOURCE GSMA

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Chef Robotics Physical AI Models Can Now Automate Baked Goods Packing

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SAN FRANCISCO, April 29, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Chef Robotics, a leader in physical AI for the food industry, today announced that Chef robots can now automate tray assembly for baked goods packing. The application places baked products, such as burger buns, chocolate chip cookies, biscotti, butter cookies, biscuits, fortune cookies, granola bars, rusks, and shortbreads into trays and packaging containers before sealing.

Watch Chef robots in action.

Baked goods packing has historically been difficult to automate for high-mix production. Each item behaves differently on the production line—a granola bar compresses under the wrong grip, while a biscotti or rusk can crack if placed at the wrong angle. Surface textures range from glazed and smooth to crumbly and irregular, and strict presentation requirements leave little room for error. This variability has made it challenging for automation systems to reliably handle baked goods at production speeds, leaving food manufacturers dependent on manual labor and traditional bakery equipment.

To address this, Chef built its baked goods packing application on its existing piece-picking capability, which uses Chef’s AI-powered computer vision and physical AI models trained across diverse real-world production environments. This allows Chef robots to assess each item’s position, shape, and orientation in real time and determine how to pick the items from the pan and place them quickly and precisely without damaging them.

The baked goods packing application supports four distinct placement capabilities.

First, Chef’s vision system detects the angle at which each item sits in the pan and reorients it after picking, placing it on the tray at the exact angle required, regardless of its original position, enabling retail-ready presentation for SKUs that require precise angular placement.

Second, Chef robots can place multiple baked goods into the same packaging container in a single automated pass, completing full tray assembly without manual intervention.

Third, for packaging containers with multiple small compartments, Chef robots can precisely place items into each designated section, including multiple items in the same compartment, using Chef’s AI vision model to detect compartment positions and orientations in real time.

Fourth, Chef’s vision system identifies the exact center of each tray and places every item at a predefined offset from that center, ensuring a uniform, consistent arrangement across every pack regardless of how trays arrive on the conveyor.

For food manufacturers evaluating bakery systems and baked goods packaging automation, the application offers higher throughput, reduced labor dependency, and consistent presentation across shifts. The capability runs on Chef’s existing robotic hardware and software, allowing manufacturers to deploy it without requiring any changes to their production lines.

Chef’s baked goods packing application is available in the U.S., Canada, Germany, and the UK and is included as part of Chef’s robotics-as-a-service (RaaS) pricing model.

About Chef Robotics
Chef is the first company to have commercialized a scalable AI-driven food robotics solution. With over 104 million servings made in production, Chef leverages ChefOS, an AI platform for food manipulation, to offer a Robotics-as-a-Service solution that helps industry-leading food companies increase production volume and meet demand. Headquartered in San Francisco, CA, Chef aims to empower humans to do what humans do best by accelerating the advent of intelligent machines. Visit https://chefrobotics.ai to learn more.

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/chef-robotics-physical-ai-models-can-now-automate-baked-goods-packing-302756923.html

SOURCE Chef Robotics

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Chef Robotics Physical AI Models Can Now Automate Baked Goods Packing

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SAN FRANCISCO, April 29, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Chef Robotics, a leader in physical AI for the food industry, today announced that Chef robots can now automate tray assembly for baked goods packing. The application places baked products, such as burger buns, chocolate chip cookies, biscotti, butter cookies, biscuits, fortune cookies, granola bars, rusks, and shortbreads into trays and packaging containers before sealing.

Watch Chef robots in action.

Baked goods packing has historically been difficult to automate for high-mix production. Each item behaves differently on the production line—a granola bar compresses under the wrong grip, while a biscotti or rusk can crack if placed at the wrong angle. Surface textures range from glazed and smooth to crumbly and irregular, and strict presentation requirements leave little room for error. This variability has made it challenging for automation systems to reliably handle baked goods at production speeds, leaving food manufacturers dependent on manual labor and traditional bakery equipment.

To address this, Chef built its baked goods packing application on its existing piece-picking capability, which uses Chef’s AI-powered computer vision and physical AI models trained across diverse real-world production environments. This allows Chef robots to assess each item’s position, shape, and orientation in real time and determine how to pick the items from the pan and place them quickly and precisely without damaging them.

The baked goods packing application supports four distinct placement capabilities.

First, Chef’s vision system detects the angle at which each item sits in the pan and reorients it after picking, placing it on the tray at the exact angle required, regardless of its original position, enabling retail-ready presentation for SKUs that require precise angular placement.

Second, Chef robots can place multiple baked goods into the same packaging container in a single automated pass, completing full tray assembly without manual intervention.

Third, for packaging containers with multiple small compartments, Chef robots can precisely place items into each designated section, including multiple items in the same compartment, using Chef’s AI vision model to detect compartment positions and orientations in real time.

Fourth, Chef’s vision system identifies the exact center of each tray and places every item at a predefined offset from that center, ensuring a uniform, consistent arrangement across every pack regardless of how trays arrive on the conveyor.

For food manufacturers evaluating bakery systems and baked goods packaging automation, the application offers higher throughput, reduced labor dependency, and consistent presentation across shifts. The capability runs on Chef’s existing robotic hardware and software, allowing manufacturers to deploy it without requiring any changes to their production lines.

Chef’s baked goods packing application is available in the U.S., Canada, Germany, and the UK and is included as part of Chef’s robotics-as-a-service (RaaS) pricing model.

About Chef Robotics
Chef is the first company to have commercialized a scalable AI-driven food robotics solution. With over 104 million servings made in production, Chef leverages ChefOS, an AI platform for food manipulation, to offer a Robotics-as-a-Service solution that helps industry-leading food companies increase production volume and meet demand. Headquartered in San Francisco, CA, Chef aims to empower humans to do what humans do best by accelerating the advent of intelligent machines. Visit https://chefrobotics.ai to learn more.

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/chef-robotics-physical-ai-models-can-now-automate-baked-goods-packing-302756923.html

SOURCE Chef Robotics

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Air Products to Expand Industrial Gas Supply for Samsung Electronics’ Next-Generation Semiconductor Fab in South Korea

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New investment underscores the company’s long-term commitment to Korea and its leading role in the global semiconductor industry 

LEHIGH VALLEY, Pa., April 29, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Air Products (NYSE:APD), a world-leading industrial gases company and serving Samsung globally, today announced it has been selected by Samsung to supply industrial gases for its new advanced semiconductor fab in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, South Korea.

Under the agreement, Air Products will build, own and operate multiple state-of-the-art production facilities and a bulk specialty gas supply system to supply nitrogen, oxygen, argon, and hydrogen for Samsung’s new semiconductor fab. The new facilities are expected to come onstream in multiple phases from 2028 through 2030.

Air Products has a long track record of executing multiple phase expansions in Pyeongtaek to support Samsung’s growing manufacturing needs. This latest project represents Air Products’ largest investment to date in the semiconductor industry and will establish Pyeongtaek as the company’s single largest operations site globally supporting the electronics industry. 

“Air Products is honored to be selected once again by Samsung and to have their continued confidence as a trusted partner supporting their strategic growth plans,” said SR Kim, President, Air Products Korea. “This significant investment reinforces Air Products’ role as a leading global supplier to the semiconductor industry and underscores our long-standing commitment to supporting our strategic customers with safety, reliability, efficiency and excellent service.”

Air Products has served the global electronics industry for more than 40 years, supplying industrial gases safely and reliably to many of the world’s leading technology companies. The company has operated in Korea for more than 50 years and has established a strong position in electronics and manufacturing sectors.

About Air Products

Air Products (NYSE: APD) is a world-leading industrial gases company in operation for over 85 years focused on serving energy, environmental, and emerging markets and generating a cleaner future. The Company supplies essential industrial gases, related equipment and applications expertise to customers in dozens of industries, including refining, chemicals, metals, electronics, manufacturing, medical and food. As the leading global supplier of hydrogen, Air Products also develops, engineers, builds, owns and operates some of the world’s largest clean hydrogen projects, supporting the transition to low- and zero-carbon energy in the industrial and heavy-duty transportation sectors. Through its sale of equipment businesses, the Company also provides turbomachinery, membrane systems and cryogenic containers globally.

Air Products had fiscal 2025 sales of $12 billion from operations in approximately 50 countries. For more information, visit airproducts.com or follow us on LinkedInXFacebook or Instagram.

This release contains “forward-looking statements” within the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are based on management’s expectations and assumptions as of the date of this release and are not guarantees of future performance. While forward-looking statements are made in good faith and based on assumptions, expectations and projections that management believes are reasonable based on currently available information, actual performance and financial results may differ materially from projections and estimates expressed in the forward-looking statements because of many factors, including the risk factors described in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2025 and other factors disclosed in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Except as required by law, we disclaim any obligation or undertaking to update or revise any forward-looking statements contained herein to reflect any change in the assumptions, beliefs or expectations or any change in events, conditions or circumstances upon which any such forward-looking statements are based.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/air-products-to-expand-industrial-gas-supply-for-samsung-electronics-next-generation-semiconductor-fab-in-south-korea-302757497.html

SOURCE Air Products

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