AIST 2026 Leadership Conference

The technology conference covers ironmaking, steelmaking, finishing processes, and engineering and equipment technologies. Program topics include safety and health; environmental technology; cokemaking; ironmaking and direct reduced iron; electric and oxygen steelmaking; specialty alloys and foundry operations; secondary refining and continuous casting; hot and cold rolling, galvanizing, tinplate, plate and long products; pipe and tube; metallurgy; energy and utilities; electrical and digitalization applications; project and construction management; maintenance and reliability; refractory systems; material handling; cranes; and transportation and logistics. Technical topics include hydrogen-based ironmaking, scrap optimization, energy efficiency, greenhouse-gas reduction, carbon capture and storage, water treatment and reuse, AI and digitalization, predictive maintenance, industrial control-system cybersecurity, steel product quality, and process reliability. The schedule lists technical sessions, the Howe Memorial Lecture, an undergraduate student project presentation contest, a graduate student poster contest display, a Steel to Students roundtable, Technology Committee meetings, and a Town Hall Forum. The event also includes an iron and steel exposition.

The program includes keynotes, panels, breakouts, and interactive roundtables on steel-industry conditions; fabrication businesses, leadership, and industry outlook; AI and digitization in manufacturing; shop-floor equipment use cases and return on investment; and manufacturing’s economic and financial outlook. Sessions also address profitability, capital investment, business growth, tariffs, steel, leadership development, recruitment, small- and midsize-manufacturer growth, and potential changes to tax policy, OSHA and EPA regulations, and tariffs. Roundtable topics include culture, marketing, AI, and operations.

The event brings together the ACerS Annual Meeting, AIST Steel Properties & Applications, the TMS Fall Meeting, and the Advanced Materials Show. Planned technical symposia cover additive manufacturing, including modeling, AI and machine learning, process control, ceramic 3D printing, and qualification and certification of computational materials tools. Other materials topics include ceramics, glass, electronic and nanostructured materials, advanced alloys, and high-temperature phase transformations. Steel and ferrous-metallurgy programming addresses alloy design, steel processing and coatings, medium- and high-manganese steels, decarbonization, scrap recyclability, and materials for transportation, defense, energy, hydrogen, carbon capture, geothermal, and nuclear applications. Energy-focused symposia cover clean hydrogen, electrochemical storage and conversion, thermal management, and alternative-energy devices, including solid-state batteries, electrolyzers, fuel cells, and thermoelectric systems. Additional planned topics include corrosion and degradation in extreme environments, nuclear materials and waste-storage forms, and materials for advanced manufacturing. The co-located Advanced Materials Show focuses on high-performing materials technology and the materials manufacturing supply chain.

The committee will develop AISTech sessions, select abstracts, determine session structure and session chairs, review paper- and session-chair instructions, and finalize the call for papers for AISTech 2028. Technical discussion topics include hot-dip galvanizing, galvannealing, aluminized products, new zinc-alloy coatings, dual metallic/organic processes, new facilities and modernizations, productivity improvements, new equipment technologies, coated-product substrate quality, defect prevention and detection, and surface post-treatments. The agenda also includes planning for a 2027 European Galvanizing Line Study Tour. The second day includes a tour of Befesa Zinc in Mooresboro, North Carolina.

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.

The program combines technical and management sessions, exhibits, and presentations for foundry professionals, suppliers, casting designers, buyers, and OEM representatives. Topics include additive manufacturing, casting design and purchasing, engineering, environmental health and safety, ferrous and nonferrous alloys, Industry 4.0, marketing and sales, melting, molding, pouring, quality control, workforce development, and casting case studies, reshoring, material selection, and casting quality. The program also includes the Hoyt Memorial Lecture on integrated computational materials engineering (ICME) and artificial intelligence for sustainable metalcasting. Its themes include alloy design, process innovation, digital manufacturing, workforce development, and using physics-based ICME with AI and machine learning to improve casting development, manufacturing processes, and prediction of microstructure, defects, and mechanical properties.

The conference combines superintendent and engineer meetings for presentations on new technology, standards, and industry regulations, alongside a joint product show featuring solutions from digital tools to bucket trucks. Agenda topics include automation, leadership, field testing for metering accuracy and hidden losses, AI tools for engineering and operations, advanced distribution operations and faster restoration, and relay testing. A group-led roundtable covers artificial intelligence in electric cooperatives, contractor requirements, dispatching, employee retention, right-of-way and line-extension policies, pole loading and guying, BESS, data center loads, electronic breakers, safety, equipment, and automation. Additional listed issues include ODOT projects, ground-grid and relay advancements, vegetation and asset management using LiDAR and drone mapping, protection engineering, utility construction coordination and constructability, and independent construction oversight and QA/QC. The business meeting includes the election of 2027 officers and new business.

The program brings together energy, industrial transformation, and advanced manufacturing, with cross-cutting themes of workforce development, standards, finance, AI and digital transformation, policy, and resilience planning. Roundtables, workshops, and demos are designed to address tradeoffs involving affordability, risk, standardization, and deployment speed. Program tracks include Powering Growth, with sample sessions on data-center power and cooling, new nuclear deployment, solar cost reduction, and scaling geothermal; Industry Reimagined, covering industrial heat electrification, next-generation steel, and EPC project-delivery costs and risks; Next-Gen Manufacturing, addressing hardware investment and bankability, additive manufacturing, and sustainability tradeoffs in product design; and Future Workforce, on nuclear workforce readiness, apprenticeships, and aligning training programs with real projects. Additional sessions are in development in areas including energy storage, fusion, industrial efficiency, critical minerals, and sustainability tradeoffs. The listed sessions are samples and subject to change.

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.