AI4Energy Americas 2026

Sessions examine natural gas market fundamentals for AI data center demand, including basin capabilities, rig activity, storage trends, pipeline bottlenecks, competition with LNG exports and other electricity demand, and commercial strategies for procurement, hedging, and risk management. The program also addresses AI and predictive analytics for pipeline nominations, forecasting, capacity management, and gas-flow optimization, plus integration with ERP, ETRM, CRM, and SCADA systems. Infrastructure discussions cover pipeline capacity, reliability and right-of-way; regional transmission, distribution and generation investment; federal-land development models; and the commercial and regulatory structures needed to advance large-load projects. Utility service challenges include pipeline limitations, public perception, permitting, capital requirements, commercial structuring, cost allocation, reliability obligations, and protecting existing customers. A developers roundtable covers demand forecasts versus speculative projects, developer qualifications, speed-to-power and behind-the-meter strategies, gas procurement, community hurdles, and regulatory and policy issues. Other sessions address mobile gas delivery and virtual pipelines, including CNG/LNG solutions for remote or capacity-constrained markets. The keynote considers AI-driven electricity demand, gas and electric utility bottlenecks, regional load growth, and nuclear energy. A Texas-focused panel examines policy, technology, research, planning, permitting, investment, and cross-sector coordination for large-load development, including data centers and advanced manufacturing.

Resources for the Future and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation bring together researchers and stakeholders to examine energy economics, policy, and technology, with an emphasis on connecting research and decision-making. In-person attendance is by invitation only. The program includes an opening discussion on how researchers can collaborate with decision-makers amid changes in the US energy research and policy landscapes. Topical breakout sessions use lightning talks, practitioner reflections, and moderated discussion to cover energy supply chains, energy workforce transitions, industrial decarbonization, and energy system resilience. Other sessions address consumer perspectives on electricity rate design, energy efficiency, vehicle purchases, and energy policy choices; clean-energy research and deployment involving nuclear energy, geothermal technologies, carbon capture, and carbon dioxide removal; and the United States’ position in global clean-energy innovation. Facilitated networking focuses on data access, combining quantitative and qualitative research, reaching new audiences, and building communities of practice. The program also includes participant-nominated breakfast salons and a funders’ panel on emerging energy-system research needs and opportunities for impact.

The program spans project execution, nuclear energy, and grids, AI, and infrastructure. Sessions address financing and delivering the U.S. energy buildout; grid capacity, interconnection, transmission, reliability, and cost allocation; and the effects of data-center and industrial demand on power planning. Nuclear topics include power for data centers, first-of-a-kind project cost and delivery, nuclear finance, HALEU and fuel supply, utility choices among large reactors, SMRs, and microreactors, and pathways to SMR deployment. Other sessions cover LNG security, trade, and investment; energy storage and grid-edge technologies; AI in energy operations; and project bankability, permitting, policy, supply-chain, and delivery risks. The program also includes executive roundtables, a project-execution clinic, and an energy startup pitch competition.

The summit examines how AI-driven demand, geopolitical tensions, and electrification are reshaping energy systems. Discussion themes include building power, infrastructure, and supply chains, and who will fund, deliver, and benefit from the next phase of growth. The event brings together perspectives from energy, technology, digital infrastructure, and finance.

Four plenary sessions and technical panels address solid-state transformer (SST) topologies and system architectures; power devices, including SiC, GaN, high-voltage IGBTs, and medium-voltage protection; high-frequency magnetics, packaging, and thermal management; fusion as a potential power source for data centers; SST control, protection, reliability, cybersecurity, and grid services; and grid-interactive data centers, energy storage, onsite generation, and flexible AI loads. The program also includes poster sessions and awards. Panel topics include grid interconnection, microgrids, demand response, renewable integration, battery and long-duration storage, workload flexibility, waste-heat recovery, and coordination between data centers and utilities. Plenary speakers include Dr. Patrick Chapman, Vice President of Enphase Energy and a National Academy of Engineering member, and Dr. Le Xie, Gordon McKay Professor at Harvard University.

The conference program covers policy, governance, and global strategy for integrating autonomy across air, ground, and maritime domains, including counter-UAS authorities, AI governance, regulatory harmonization, spectrum allocation, and infrastructure readiness. Strategic Resilience addresses cybersecurity, geopolitical disruption, constrained access to critical components, NDAA and FCC covered-list procurement requirements, export controls, battery supply chains, and critical materials. Technology in Motion focuses on AI-driven perception, advanced propulsion, sensor fusion, collaborative autonomy, swarm coordination, counter-UAS systems, AI/ML certification, and verification and validation. Enterprise Operations & Ecosystem Integration examines domestic production, manufacturing readiness, MRO, reshoring, contract and additive manufacturing, vertiport integration, maritime logistics, digital twins, and production scaling. Autonomy in Action covers procurement, BVLOS and Part 108 operations, grants, venture capital, public-private partnerships, and commercial deployments. AUVSI Defense programming addresses maritime autonomy, national security and warfighter requirements, counter-UxS, appropriations, and fielding trusted systems at scale.

Sessions address policy, regulatory, and power-supply issues affecting joint action agencies and public power utilities. Topics include affordability, reliability, load growth, member expectations, and the role of joint action agencies in supporting members. The program covers AI and data centers’ effects on electricity-demand forecasts; utility costs, procurement timelines, supply chains, and rates; advanced nuclear deployment timelines, economics, and regulatory pathways; natural-gas production, pipeline development, and supply risks; and resource adequacy, capacity markets, and regional reliability. Additional sessions address battery storage, distributed and backup generation, virtual power plants, demand response, and emerging AI applications and member services. The event is designed for CEOs and senior management of joint action agencies and state associations, board members, commissioners, and public power utilities. Select sessions may be restricted to APPA member utilities, joint action agencies, and state associations.

Under the theme “Chemical Engineering Reimagined,” the meeting covers chemical-engineering research, technologies, and emerging growth areas. Program guides highlight AI and machine learning, climate change, industrial careers, and early-career faculty. The AI and machine-learning program includes sessions on process development; polymer simulation, informatics, and data analytics; data-driven pharmaceutical process controls; AI-enabled process design, scale-up, and workforce readiness; nuclear chemical engineering; manufacturing-system modeling; computational catalysis; digital twins in energy systems; biomass utilization; and data-driven medicine. Featured discussions consider digital transformation, evolving industrial ecosystems, sustainability pressures, and changing workforce expectations, as well as ways to incorporate data science into chemical-engineering curricula, degree programs, certificates, and teaching of statistics and programming. Featured lectures address chemical engineers’ roles amid advances in AI, sustainable energy, and an interconnected global economy, and the use of catalysis to convert biomass, CO2, and end-of-life polymers into fuels, chemicals, and materials. Other lecture themes include carbon circularity, process intensification, renewable hydrogen, and pathways toward net-negative carbon manufacturing.

An intensive workshop on projected electricity demand and expanding the supply of natural resources used to generate power. Topics include natural gas, geothermal development and repurposing oil and gas assets; hydrogen, uranium, lithium and critical minerals; and water, environmental, storage, site-selection and regulatory considerations. Program discussions cover grid shortfalls and raw materials for electricity generation, solutions for increasing electricity supply, geothermal, and technology including ORC, sensors and small nuclear reactors. Other sessions address AI prompts for grid and behind-the-meter planning; lithium direct lithium extraction (DLE) and hydrogen technologies; regulatory and legislative factors affecting geothermal, critical minerals, low-carbon energy, grids and data centers; and mining and oil-and-gas intersections, including near-surface imaging and copper for electricity transmission. The program also includes an AI prompt clinic focused on water, the environment, science and regulations.