A two-day B2B summit in Riyadh, 19 to 20 October 2026, convening AI infrastructure operators, data center leaders, hyperscalers, policymakers and enterprise technology executives on Saudi Arabia's digital infrastructure agenda across compute, cloud, energy, cybersecurity and investment.
AI Infrastructure and Data Centers Summit (also written AIDC Summit and AIDC2026) is a two-day in-person B2B summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, run by the conference producer Confer Global. The 2026 edition takes place on 19 to 20 October 2026 at Voco Riyadh. It is an annual summit and a small, intimate one by the organiser's own figures. This is the second edition: a first edition, titled AI & Data Centers Summit, ran on 29 and 30 October 2025 at the Marriott Riyadh. The programme covers sovereign AI compute, data center expansion and cooling, semiconductors, cybersecurity and AI risk, and energy and funding for AI infrastructure in the Kingdom. Alongside the talks it runs an exhibition and technology showcase.
19 to 20 October 2026, two days. Voco Riyadh, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The organiser's homepage and registration page both give these dates and this venue, and the agenda shows registration opening at 08:30 on day one and the first keynote at 09:00 on both days. No street address is given on the summit site. The hotel's own listing on the IHG site, as surfaced by search (its page returned an access error to direct requests), places it on King Fahad Road, opposite the Ministry of Interior, Riyadh 13003. No date change or relocation has been announced since the 2026 dates were published.
Confer Global organises AI Infrastructure and Data Centers Summit. The legal entity named in the footer of the summit site is Confer Global Business Services LLC FZ, which gives a Dubai address (6th Floor, Meydan Grandstand, Nad Al Sheba) and a Riyadh address on its own site, conferglobal.com. The contact page credits Confer Global with conceiving and organising the event. Named contacts on the summit site are Pranjal (sponsorship and exhibition), Neha (speaking opportunities), Davina (attendee registration) and Akshay (for those wishing to organise a similar event), all at conferglobal.co. A 2025 notice from the ISACA Riyadh Chapter titles Pranjal Baruah as Business Head MEA & APAC and Davina Duo as Head of Delegate Acquisition MEA & APAC at Confer Global. No independent industry body, association or government entity is named as organiser or host.
The organiser states 150+ in-person delegates for 2026 (organiser figure, unaudited), alongside 30+ speakers and leaders, 25+ keynotes and sessions and 20+ technology and solution providers. The homepage names the intended audience as data center operators (colocation groups, facility owners, hyperscale delivery teams), AI and cloud leaders, energy and utilities experts, and investors and policymakers (sovereign funds, ministries, regulators and strategic investors). No attendance figure is published for the 2025 edition, so there is no year-on-year comparison. No breakdown by country, seniority or company type is published.
The speakers section of the official homepage lists eight names (published roster, titles as given by the organiser). The photo files behind several of these entries were uploaded to the site between June and October 2025, so how many of the eight are confirmed for 2026 rather than carried over from the first edition could not be established (unverifiable information). The agenda does not assign any of them to a named session.
The homepage counter claims 30+ speakers and leaders, so the published roster covers about a quarter of the claimed number. EPIC Semi also appears among the 2025 sponsors.
The 2025 edition, titled AI & Data Centers Summit, ran on 29 and 30 October 2025 at the Marriott Riyadh under the theme "Scaling Intelligence, Building Infrastructure, Powering the Future" (source: ISACA Riyadh Chapter notice). The 2026 edition moves to Voco Riyadh, runs ten days earlier in the calendar, 19 to 20 October, and the 2026 site presents six thematic areas instead of the 2025 theme. The name also changes: the 2026 site uses "AI Infrastructure & Data Centers 2026" in its title and "AI & Data Centers Summit Riyadh 2026" in its footer. The 2026 agenda is built around gigawatt-scale compute readiness, rack densities rising from 10 kW to 120 kW, liquid cooling, funding of the infrastructure build-out, and a panel on whether the Kingdom can enter the AI chip supply chain.
The organiser groups the programme into six themes: Saudi Vision 2030: AI at National Scale (sovereign AI architectures, national LLMs, secure compute); Next-Gen Data Centers for the Kingdom (hyperscale expansion, hybrid and modular designs, cooling for desert climates); AI Transformation & Edge Intelligence (use cases in healthcare and finance among others); Cybersecurity & AI Risk Management; Semiconductor & Hardware Acceleration; and Sustainability & Energy Leadership. The research record also tags cloud computing and government and policy as covered sectors. The published agenda gives two days. Day 1 is titled AI Infrastructure, Data Center Expansion & High-Performance Computing: it opens with "Gigawatt AI: Is Saudi Arabia Ready for Hyper-scale Compute Clusters?" at 09:00, then covers GPU cluster design, the economics of AI compute, a panel on mega data centers in the Gulf, liquid cooling, a build-versus-buy panel on a national compute stack, who controls the AI backbone, infrastructure procurement and retrofitting brownfield sites. Day 2 is titled Compute Workload, Energy, Data Governance & Automation: it opens with "From 10kW to 120kW per Rack" at 09:00, then covers model training pipelines, AI-driven data center automation, data sovereignty and a national AI cloud, liquid cooling at scale, a panel titled "The $50 Billion Question: Who Funds the AI Infrastructure Boom", semiconductor ambitions, autonomous data centers, net-zero data centers and "AI 2030: What Must Be Built in the Next 48 Months?". Sessions are timed from 09:00 to 15:15 and the agenda names no speaker against any session.
The format is in-person only. The organiser lists keynote presentations, panel discussions, leadership roundtables, fireside chats, live demos and exhibition, strategic networking, investor conversations and a technology showcase. The published agenda shows keynotes, presentations and panel discussions with start times between 09:00 and 15:15; no roundtable, fireside chat or investor conversation appears as a timed session on the agenda page (inconsistency between the format list and the agenda). Registration and a networking breakfast open day one at 08:30. A matchmaking system is recorded in the research record, but the summit site does not describe a matchmaking tool or app.
None found in the sourced material as separate events. No awards, evening reception, satellite day or fringe programme is published for 2026. What the organiser describes inside the two days are a live demos and exhibition area, a technology showcase and strategic networking, described as part of the main programme rather than separate events.
Not publicly disclosed. The homepage offers only a "Register Interest" button, and the registration page is an enquiry form (name, job title, company, email, phone, and whether you join as speaker, sponsor, attendee, exhibitor or media). It states that the organiser will contact the registrant for confirmation and next steps, and gives no ticket tiers, early-bird price or deadline. For the 2025 edition, the ISACA Riyadh Chapter wrote that the summit was free of charge for its member delegates and that its members were offered a 20% discount on exhibiting; no such terms are published for 2026.
No open call for papers is published. The registration form has an "As a Speaker" option, and the contact page lists Neha as the address for speaking opportunities (neha@conferglobal.co). No deadline, selection criteria or fee policy is stated. Whether speaking slots are linked to sponsorship is not stated.
The homepage offers a "Sponsor the Summit" button, and the registration form has "As a Sponsor" and "As an Exhibitor" options. The contact page gives Pranjal as the sponsor and exhibitor contact (pranjal@conferglobal.co), and the registration page repeats that address for partnership opportunities. No rate card, package tiers or exhibition floor plan are published. The organiser says the event includes 20+ technology and solution providers and a live demos and exhibition area.
The homepage logo wall has a block headed "2026 Sponsors" with four names (published roster, no tier or role shown): Keysight, BEEHE, Kearney and CIO Tech Outlook. A separate block headed "2025 Sponsors" lists eleven names from the first edition: Edarat Group, FanRuan, EPIC Semi, Verotera, iMachines, SecuTronic, ISACA Riyadh Chapter, CIO Tech Outlook, AI Brief, CoinBrit and CoinPedia. The site does not say which logos are sponsors, partners or media. The ISACA Riyadh Chapter described itself in 2025 as an Associate Partner of the summit. Confer Global's name appears as organiser, not as sponsor.
No audience breakdown by company type is published. The 2026 sponsor and speaker lists show three groups. Hardware and technology vendors: Keysight, EPIC Semi, HUMAIN and the National Semiconductor Hub of Saudi Arabia. Advisory and real estate firms: Kearney and JLL Saudi Arabia. Public and quasi-public bodies: a PIF company, Aramco, the SASO standards committee and King Faisal Specialist Hospital & Research Center. Operators and hyperscalers, the audience the organiser puts first, are not identifiable by name on the published roster or sponsor wall.
Not publicly disclosed as a process. The registration page has a "Media" option in the form and says it lets media "cover the summit, access industry leaders" (organiser wording). No accreditation policy, deadline, press room or named press contact is published. The general enquiries address on the contact page is marketing@conferglobal.com, and the registration page gives enquiries@conferglobal.com for registrants who have not heard back within 24 hours.
None found from independent outlets. What exists is promotional or listing coverage: the ISACA Riyadh Chapter's 2025 event notice for its members, an event listing for the 2025 edition on Daily AI Brief that repeats the organiser's description, and the organiser's own site. The summit site shows logos for CIO Tech Outlook, AI Brief, CoinBrit and CoinPedia on its sponsor wall with no stated role, and no article from any of them about the event was found.
Low, and mostly untestable. Everything found is either placed or promotional: a membership-body notice from a chapter that was itself an associate partner, a listing that copies the organiser's text, and organiser claims of 150+ delegates, 30+ speakers and 25+ sessions with no independent count. Nothing independent confirms attendance for either edition, and no post-event report for October 2025 was found.
Anyone who needs a high-volume exhibition or hundreds of stands: the organiser claims 150+ delegates and 20+ providers. Buyers who need named operators and hyperscalers on the speaker list should wait, since the published roster of eight does not identify any (see the roster above). Speakers looking for a clear route to the stage will find no call for papers, only an email address. Anyone who needs a published ticket price, a refund policy or remote access before committing will not find them. Attendees outside Saudi Arabia's infrastructure market, such as consumer technology teams, will find the six themes tightly tied to the Kingdom.
AI Infrastructure and Data Centers Summit is a two-day, in-person, October event held in Riyadh in 19 to 20 October 2026, with an infrastructure and data center focus rather than a general AI one. It is the second edition, following 29 and 30 October 2025. Its claimed 150+ delegates (organiser figure) make it a small room by the standard of regional AI events, though no comparison figure is published by the organiser. The organiser positions it within Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 agenda and does not compare itself with other events.
No. The only other edition found is the first one, in Riyadh at the Marriott Riyadh on 29 and 30 October 2025. No edition in another city is announced on the summit site. Confer Global runs other summits (its own site lists Digitizing Africa, among others), none of them presented as part of this series.
Not publicly disclosed as a policy. The summit site, agenda and speaker titles are all in English, and no interpretation service is mentioned.
Not publicly disclosed. The organiser describes an in-person summit and mentions no livestream, virtual pass or replay in the homepage, agenda or registration page.
Not publicly disclosed. No terms and conditions, refund or cancellation page is published on the summit site (the privacy policy and terms paths return a not-found error), and the registration form is an expression of interest, not a payment step.
Not publicly disclosed. The summit site publishes no accessibility statement. The hotel's own listing is the place to check step-free access and facilities before booking.
Voco Riyadh is a hotel in central Riyadh. The IHG listing, as surfaced by search, gives the address as King Fahad Road, opposite the Ministry of Interior, Riyadh 13003, near government offices and with access to King Khalid International Airport. The summit site gives no directions, transport, parking or accommodation arrangement and no delegate hotel rate. For logistics, contact the organiser or the hotel, whose reservations contact appears on the IHG listing.
The summit puts the hardest questions of Saudi Arabia's AI plans on the agenda in plain terms: whether the Kingdom is ready for gigawatt compute clusters, what rack densities of 120 kW mean for design and cost, and who funds a "$50 Billion Question" build-out. For a data center operator, vendor or investor assessing the Saudi market, a small two-day room with infrastructure as its single subject is a cheaper way to reach decision-makers than a general technology show. The cost of that focus is thin public evidence: eight published speakers, no named operators among them, and no independent attendance count.
Every headline number comes from the organiser and none is audited: 150+ delegates, 30+ speakers and leaders, 25+ keynotes and sessions, 20+ technology and solution providers. The published roster names eight speakers, not 30+, and the agenda names none against a session, so the speaker count cannot be checked. The speaker photos date from the 2025 edition, which suggests part of the lineup is carried over. No attendance or outcome figure exists for the first edition either, and the 2026 sponsor wall shows four names with no stated tier. Read the 150+ as a target, and ask the organiser for the delegate list by company type before paying.
Official site: https://aidcsummit.com/. Registration and enquiry form: https://aidcsummit.com/event-registration-aidc2026/. Hashtag: #AIDCSummit2026. RSS: https://aidcsummit.com/feed/ (it carries only a single 2025 placeholder post). Contacts on record: Pranjal (sponsorship and exhibition, pranjal@conferglobal.co); Neha (speaking, neha@conferglobal.co); Davina (attendee registration, davina@conferglobal.co); Akshay (organising a similar event, akshay@conferglobal.co); general enquiries marketing@conferglobal.com and +44 20 3769 6896. Organiser site: https://conferglobal.com/.