CERAWeek 2026 Starts Monday: Critical Energy Nexus of Power, Geopolitics and AI Future
Convergence and competition.
Two different forces with oppositional meanings, right? And yet the upcoming theme for perhaps the world’s most important energy conference is uniting these terms as having the potential for revolutionizing the power generation sector together as one.
CERAWeek 2026 begins Monday and runs through Thursday with hundreds of energy sector CEOs and thought leaders presenting their takes on power production and infrastructure, industrial innovation and global geopolitical crosswinds.
It is sponsored by S&P Global and mostly occurs in the George R. Brown Convention Center in downtown Houston. EnergyTech will be there covering CERAWeek.
CERAWeek, which was co-founded by legendary energy journalist and conference chair Daniel Yergin decades ago, has flourished primarily as a massive oil and gas-centered summit, but over time it is aligning multiple to focus not only on energy itself, but how the world economy might evolve in response to generational energy trends.
These sectors and critical topics covered at CERAWeek include oil and gas, renewables, nuclear, energy affordability, grid resiliency, mining, regulatory frameworks, geopolitics and big surprise, artificial intelligence.
In Focus at CERAWeek: The speed and energy hunger of AI
The impact of AI, both in spurring technological uncertainty and its alarming energy consumption demands, is changing the world. Its rise is real enough that CERAWeek is committed to multiple sessions and its own AI Hub centered around the phenomenon.
“It’s completely changing the way we work,” said Hector Rocha, global AI leader for energy at global professional services firm Accenture, who is part of an “AI in Energy” session happening Monday morning and including experts from CERAWeek Host S&P Global, ABB and the U.S. Department of Energy.
“AI needs a lot of power,” he conceded, adding that “it’s impressive how a new technology can do things at a speed we never thought would be possible before. Its computing power can analyze data in fractions of a second.”
AI gallops at a pace that’s both mesmerizing and perhaps more than a little frightening. How do we control it, not only in the “stop it from taking over the world and our jobs” sense but in the energy resource adequacy and affordability” sense?
Those questions will stand front and center during presentations and conversations at CERAWeek, in addition to deep discussions about oil, gas, geopolitics and impact of the U.S.-Israel War with Iran.
Accenture’s Rocha is not commenting on those kinds of world-changing geopolitical issues. His singular focus is on the ways that AI might evolve and, at some fortunate point, actually play a role in making energy more efficient for all.
“No. 1, Let’s not do AI for the sake of doing AI,” he cautioned. “AI should produce enterprise value, and we need to define what that enterprise value is.
“No. 2, what are the business challenges we are trying to solve (with AI and energy)?” Rocha added. “No. 3 . . . not everything has to be AI.”
Grounding the energy future across multiple generation resources
Now there’s a concept: Not everything has to be AI. This world might just offer resources which can help bridge the goals of sustainability and resiliency.
John Plack, senior vice president of engineering and implement for clean energy and infrastructure at on-site energy project developer Ameresco, is excited about new innovations coming in the geothermal sector. Plack, who was speaking to EnergyTech in an interview unrelated to CERAWeek coverage, detailed the geothermal overhaul and energy efficiency technology upgrades at the U.S. Army’s Fort Polk in Louisiana.
The $30 million energy savings performance contract teamed Ameresco with Cordia’s Velarium Energy to install new geothermal infrastructure for military housing.
“It’s been a while coming up. This is the third and final phase of doing a geothermal retrofit at Fort Polk,” Plack said. “It’s been a great experience and continues to ensure that geothermal remains at the forefront.”
At Fort Polk, ground source heat pumps will deliver heating and energy for military housing. On a grander scale beyond one military example, Plack sees geothermal as an ever-improving energy resource which offers unique clean energy attributes.
“The geothermal buzz is around new technologies, making it more viable,” he said. “In the past it was often more hit or miss.”
Innovations adapted from the oil and gas drilling sector, including hydraulic fracturing, are creating more certainty in geothermal project development. And, like AI, it may be able to solve more than one challenge at a time.
“With geothermal, it fits into this need for baseload power, firm power, where you’re able to create firm power and be sustainable at the same time,” Plack pointed out. “It’s a quick win on both sides of that equation.”
Multiple choices for solving long-term energy challenges
Plack’s heart, both personally and professionally, is centered on geothermal, but he and his company are exploring additional resources in the “all-of-the-above” aim to supply energy for AI, cloud-based computing, industrial automation and multi-sector electrification.
Ameresco is expanding its look into future collaborations around battery storage and nuclear energy, including small modular reactors.
“The future of power production is going to be varied, and it will run across a lot of sub-sets of different power systems,” Plack said.
CERAWeek 2026 is all about a variety of energy-intensive movements. Experts will be there talking about next-gen nuclear, for sure, as one of those promising resources to help meet baseload challenges with rising AI and industrial compute loads.
And AI shows its own promise as a thorny problem that might also be the cyber solution to future energy adequacy, efficiency and affordability issues.
“We need to step away beyond those individual, isolated pain points to true reinvention,” Accenture’s Rocha noted. “We must identify functions and new ways of working with AI with humans in the lead.”
For instance, he added, “It can drive AI transformation across the oil and gas industry globally.”
Perhaps this generative and agentic AI pace also could speed up adoption and capacity factors for nuclear, geothermal, solar, wind and battery storage. Everything is up for grabs in this commercial and industrial energy transition.
The gigabytes might help solve the gigawatt dilemma. If nothing else, those objectives will be front and center this week at CERAWeek in Houston.
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About the Author
Rod Walton, EnergyTech Managing Editor
Managing Editor
For EnergyTech editorial inquiries, please contact Managing Editor Rod Walton at [email protected].
Rod Walton has spent 17 years covering the energy industry as a newspaper and trade journalist. He formerly was energy writer and business editor at the Tulsa World. Later, he spent six years covering the electricity power sector for Pennwell and Clarion Events. He joined Endeavor and EnergyTech in November 2021.
Walton earned his Bachelors degree in journalism from the University of Oklahoma. His career stops include the Moore American, Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise, Wagoner Tribune and Tulsa World.
EnergyTech is focused on the mission critical and large-scale energy users and their sustainability and resiliency goals. These include the commercial and industrial sectors, as well as the military, universities, data centers and microgrids. The C&I sectors together account for close to 30 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S.
He was named Managing Editor for Microgrid Knowledge and EnergyTech starting July 1, 2023
Many large-scale energy users such as Fortune 500 companies, and mission-critical users such as military bases, universities, healthcare facilities, public safety and data centers, shifting their energy priorities to reach net-zero carbon goals within the coming decades. These include plans for renewable energy power purchase agreements, but also on-site resiliency projects such as microgrids, combined heat and power, rooftop solar, energy storage, digitalization and building efficiency upgrades.