The ninth edition of the Artificial Intelligence Summit 2026, organized by AMETIC, is taking place these days as the main professional forum on artificial intelligence in the country and a key meeting point within the European ecosystem.
With the aim of analyzing how to convert investment into tangible and sustainable value through artificial intelligence (AI), the meeting brings together institutional representatives, business leaders and sector experts for two days. The event focuses on transforming investment into real competitiveness and reinforcing public-private collaboration as an engine of sustainable growth.
The opening ceremony was attended by Francisco Hortigüela, president of AMETIC and Jordi García Brustenga, Secretary of State for Industry.
During his speech, Francisco Hortigüela stressed that: “artificial intelligence has stopped being a promise and has become a transformation race that is changing the way we work, make decisions and generate value” and that “today the debate is no longer technological, it is strategic.” Likewise, he highlighted that “we are no longer asking ourselves whether we should adopt artificial intelligence, but how to do it well: how to take it to scale, how to integrate it safely and confidently, and how to turn innovation into real value.”
For his part, Jordi García Brustenga has assured: “we are in a moment of many changes, also of opportunities, and artificial intelligence is a change that is going to come no matter what,” and has highlighted that “if the growth of the GDP of the United States is largely explained by artificial intelligence, it will be for a reason.” Likewise, he stressed that “artificial intelligence does not replace us, but it is much faster, it learns quickly and allows us to better understand what is happening”, and he stressed that “this is going to come anyway and it depends on what we do, and it can be accelerated, but we are going to do it well and faster.”
Opportunities for organizations
During the opening day, the opportunities that artificial intelligence offers to industry, public administrations and society as a whole were highlighted.
Throughout the morning, top-level speakers analyzed current trends and the transformative potential of this technology. Isaac Hernández, Country Manager Spain & Portugal at Google Cloud, has addressed how to take AI from strategy to execution with real impact “We are at the right time for artificial intelligence, a moment comparable to the invention of electricity or fire” and “artificial intelligence has an enormous impact on the economy, but also much further afield, in areas such as health, industry or sustainability.”
Likewise, he highlighted that “the challenge is not to make pilots, which can be done in hours, but to bring them to production and at scale safely and efficiently” and that “the technology is ready; the challenge is in the culture, in the people and in how to address this process of change within organizations.”
For his part, Jeff Bullwinkel, VP & Deputy General Counsel, Corporate External & Legal Affairs at Microsoft, has analyzed the role of trust and technological resilience in a global context marked by geopolitical uncertainty, as well as Europe’s commitment in this area: “trust is not built in days or weeks, but over years and decades”, underlining the company’s commitment to Europe.
Sovereignty as a central axis
In this context, he noted that “we are experiencing one of the moments of greatest geopolitical volatility”, which is why “people do not use technologies that they do not trust.” Likewise, he stressed that “we need trust”, focusing on sovereignty as the central axis: “not as an abstract concept, but as the guarantee that technology is reliable and resilient under pressure.”
In this sense, he has highlighted Microsoft’s commitment to the continent, with investments in infrastructure that will allow it to “exceed 200 data centers in more than 16 European countries”, including Spain, and has stressed that these services must “comply with European and national laws”, as well as the company’s commitment to service continuity even in scenarios of high uncertainty.
Jordi García Castillón, Chief AI Scientist and director of CibraLAB, has delved into the development of a transformative, secure and sovereign artificial intelligence, also addressing its evolution towards increasingly autonomous models: “AI has become real and transforms, whether we investigate it, apply it or use it on a daily basis, but for this transformation to be effective it must be built on a reliable, secure, sovereign base as far as possible and increasingly autonomous.”
AI models with greater decision-making capacity
On the other hand, he has addressed the progress towards models with greater decision-making capacity, stating that “AI is beginning to be so and will become more so, but the key is to what extent we allow it to be autonomous and how we control that autonomy”, and has warned of its structural impact by stating that “artificial intelligence is not the future, it is a critical and dual-use infrastructure that is already making decisions for us and will take more in the future, so the challenge is not what it can do, but rather what we can trust in what it does.”
Next, Javier Ruiz, Head of Sales at Inetum, and Iraia Ibarzabal, Chief Growth Officer at Multiverse Computing, analyzed the evolution of AI models from cloud environments towards their direct application in industrial devices, facilitating their integration into production processes.
To close the morning, David Ríos, Security Business Manager of Vicomtech, Carlos Marina, Chief Revenue Officer of Sigma Cognition and Sonia Castillo, Head of the ICT and AI Strategy Area. ISDEFE have addressed the dual use of artificial intelligence, exploring its application in both civil contexts and defense environments.
The challenge of AI is not to make pilots, which can be done in hours, but to bring them to production and scale safely and efficiently.
The second half of the day will host a series of dialogues and debate tables with representatives of the public and private sectors, focused on artificial intelligence in strategic sectors. During these sessions, questions will be addressed such as how to extract value from AI, its impact on employment and the adaptation of talent to intelligent automation, the future of the SaaS model in a context marked by the emergence of agentic AI, as well as its role in the field of health, analyzing whether it represents a threat or a transformation of the sector.
After these sessions, Juan Alfonso Ruiz Molina, Minister of Finance, Public Administrations and Digital Transformation of the Community Board of Castilla la Mancha, will be in charge of closing the event.
