The students, engineers and startup founders who filled the halls in Abu Dhabi came looking for answers about their working lives, and the Innovation Summit Middle East and Africa gave them a working conversation rather than a corporate showcase. Schneider Electric has now concluded the two-day event, which drew more than 2500 attendees, among them government leaders, industry analysts, customers, partners, students and media, all gathered to examine how the convergence of energy, artificial intelligence and industrial software is reshaping the region’s future.
The people in the room came from different sides of the same question. Manufacturers in the UAE’s food and beverage sector, whose daily operations were the subject of a new study released during the summit, are already living with the shift. The 2026 Industrial AI in CPG Study found that 23% of these manufacturers consider AI a core part of their operations, compared with 16,3% globally, and that 59% expect AI to have a transformational impact on their organisations by 2030, against 42,2% globally. As AI deployment expands, 38% identify cybersecurity as a top priority. That concern lands squarely on the people responsible for keeping plants running safely.
For early-stage founders across the Middle East and Africa, the summit produced something more concrete. On its sidelines, the UAE Ministry of Economy and Tourism and Schneider Electric signed an agreement to launch the NEST Accelerator Programme, a 12-week initiative targeting startups working in energy technology, industrial technology and enterprise AI. The programme will be delivered through a third-party accelerator under Schneider Electric’s supervision, offering a defined pathway for young companies trying to turn ideas into viable businesses.
Meanwhile, those on the factory floor and in the control room had new technology to walk through. A key highlight was the company’s newly unveiled 3000 m2 Innovation Hub, showcasing technologies that span the full infrastructure lifecycle, from design and construction through to operation and maintenance. The summit opened with a keynote address from the UAE Minister of Economy and Tourism, and featured sessions with Schneider Electric executives on software-defined energy systems, industrial intelligence, electrification, AI-ready infrastructure and the workforce capabilities needed to support the next generation of growth. That last theme speaks directly to the students and early-career engineers in attendance, whose skills will determine whether the region’s ambitions take hold.
Held under the theme ‘Advancing Energy Tech to Power Intelligence and Resilience’, the summit framed a shift that practitioners say is already underway: the energy transition is moving from decarbonising energy supply toward building intelligent, connected and resilient systems capable of supporting AI-driven economic growth. For the operators and technicians who keep those systems running, the change is practical rather than abstract.
Olivier Blum, chief executive officer of Schneider Electric, put the underlying logic plainly. “We are entering an era in which AI is becoming embedded in the physical economy. AI may be digital, but it runs on electricity and depends on the physical systems beneath it,” he said. “As an energy technology partner, we help customers connect energy and operations through data, software, AI and automation, turning intelligence into action to improve performance, resilience and competitiveness.”
What the summit leaves behind, beyond the keynote stage and the exhibition floor, is a set of commitments that touch people directly: a study that gives UAE manufacturers a benchmark for where they stand against global peers, an accelerator that gives startups across two continents a structured route to growth, and a new hub where the engineers who will build and maintain the region’s infrastructure can see the tools they will use. For the 2500-plus attendees who came to Abu Dhabi, the question of how energy, AI and industry will converge is no longer theoretical; it is now something they can see, study and, in some cases, join.