Big Data Belfast has never been a conference for one audience.
The 2026 programme runs across two stages and covers AI adoption in practice, agentic AI, cyber security and resilience, sovereign compute, edge AI and the changing shape of work. Sessions across the day include Beyond the Model: How Amazon is Reimagining Building in the Age of AI, Generating Impact and the Future Workforce, Lifeboats and Lighthouses – Resilience for Critical National Infrastructure, and Cyber Crime and Hacking – and the Consequences for Small Business.
The focus throughout is on what organisations are actually doing, what's working, what isn't, and what comes next.
AI has moved from the edge of the business agenda to the middle of it. Boards are asking about adoption. Governments are asking about regulation. Workforces are asking what changes. And the organisations that get ahead of those questions will be the ones setting the pace over the next decade.
That's what this year's conference is built around.
The centrepiece of the morning is a session that speaks directly to where we are as a region.
Northern Ireland at an AI Crossroads brings together four people who see the question from very different angles:
Chaired by Anne Taylor of Accenture, the panel will tackle the question the whole day circles back to: what role does Northern Ireland actually play in the next wave of AI – and what has to happen for that to be a leading role rather than a supporting one?
Talent, investment, infrastructure, public sector adoption and the skills pipeline all sit in that conversation. It's a rare chance to hear the region's technology, industry and public sector leadership on the same stage with a common question in front of them.
Big Data Belfast is presented by Analytics Engines, with Accenture and AWS as Headline Partners, and supporting sponsors including AICC, Allstate, DailyPay, Dell, MCS Group, Momentum One Zero, Options Technology and E-Futures (Queen's University).
If AI is on your agenda for 2027, the conversation starts on 15 October.
Read the Summer 2026 edition free online →
Stay connected with NI's tech community:
