South Summit Madrid 2026, from 3 to 5 June at La Nave
South Summit boosts the European debate on technological competitiveness, AI and digital sovereignty
· During the second day of the meeting, the urgency of regulating Artificial Intelligence and the role of Europe vis-à-vis the United States was addressed, highlighting European talent as one of its great strengths.
· Institutional representatives, investors and technology companies have gathered to discuss the challenges and opportunities for Europe in the face of growing global competition in AI and digital sovereignty.
· More than 20,000 attendees, nearly 4,900 startups and 2,000 investors are participating in the fifteenth edition of South Summit Madrid.
· Download all the information and photos of South Summit here.
Madrid, June 4, 2026 – The second day of South Summit Madrid 2026, co-organized by IE University, brought together institutional representatives, investors, technology experts and business leaders to analyze some of the main challenges facing Europe in the midst of the global race for leadership in Artificial Intelligence.
#SouthSummit26 brings together the institutional support of the Secretary of State for Digitalization and Artificial Intelligence, the Community of Madrid and the Madrid City Council, as well as the support of companies and entities such as Mutua Madrileña, Google for Startups, BBVA Spark, Wayra – Telefónica Innovation and BStartup of Banco Sabadell.
AI governance, technological sovereignty, cybersecurity, business transformation and the economic impact of technological convergence have been the focus of much of today's debate. All this with the aim of finding out how to strengthen European competitiveness in a scenario of growing geopolitical tension and digital acceleration.
In this context, the session 'Navigating AI Governance Across Evolving System' brought together Aleida Alcaide García, Director General of Artificial Intelligence of the Ministry for Digital Transformation and Public Function; Carme Artigas, former Secretary of State for Digitalization and Artificial Intelligence of Spain, and Eoghan O'Neill, Senior Policy Officer of the Artificial Intelligence Office of the European Commission. All three agreed on the importance of building governance frameworks capable of driving technological growth. "There is no doubt that AI needs regulation. The question is how to remain competitive regardless of the regulations that exist," Artigas commented in this regard.
During the conversation, they also reflected on Europe's role in the global race for AI and on the Old Continent's ability to transform its entrepreneurial ecosystem into a business fabric capable of competing on an international scale. "Europe has talent. In fact, we have 30% more AI engineers per capita than the United States. What we need is to close the capital gap," O'Neill said. For his part, Alcaide said that "we should not divide the world between European and American companies. We need AI and we need to adopt it together."
In the session 'The Blueprint: How to Build a Unicorn. Then Do It Again', Miguel Arias, partner at KFund, and Kamran Elahian, president and co-founder of Innovera.ai, have analysed what elements differentiate startups capable of scaling globally. "You fall in love with your product until the first meeting with a customer. In 99% of cases, the customer tells you that they don't like it. That's why, to build a company you need people with resilience, perseverance and the ability not to give up," said Elahian.
The ability to turn Artificial Intelligence into a real competitive advantage for Europe was also part of the debates on the second day. In the session 'From Prompt to Action: How Large Enterprises are Deploying AI in The Real World', Paloma Castellano, Managing Director of Wayra Spain, shared the stage with Borja Batlle, GTM Southern Europe of ElevenLabs; Sergio Vidal, Head of Product at Omniloy, and Pablo del Casar, manager of the AI Center of Excellence at Telefónica Spain. "The conversation about AI has changed: it's no longer just about its potential, but about its ability to integrate into the business and make a real impact. At Wayra we are working in precisely this direction, connecting startups with Telefónica to take these technologies beyond the pilot and make them work at scale in complex environments. In this sense, we are already seeing how startups with a strong European base are bringing to the market real cases of genetic transformation in sectors such as industry or health. In the European context, doing so with reliable technology developed in our environment is key to strengthening competitiveness and advancing technological sovereignty," said Castellano.
Finally, the round table 'How to finance your startup beyond Venture Capital', moderated by Laurent Arens, Investment Director of BStartup at Banco Sabadell, brought together leaders from the Spanish entrepreneurial ecosystem to analyse the different financing alternatives available to startups. During the meeting, Iván Navas, CEO of Doofinder; Sandra Montes, CEO of ScrapAd, and Natalia Villora, CEO of Flowww, addressed strategies such as bootstrapping, bank financing, hybrid models and other options depending on the stage of growth and the needs of each business.
The Startup Competition will crown the winner of #SouthSummit26 tomorrow
South Summit Madrid 2026 will put the finishing touch to its fifteenth edition tomorrow, Friday, June 5, with the closing ceremony. During the closing of the meeting, María Benjumea, president and founder of South Summit, will announce the winning startup of the Startup Competition, as well as the winners in the startup categories 'Most Disruptive', 'Most Sustainable', 'Most Scalable' and startup with the 'Best Team'.
Hours before the closing, the keynote 'Making Investing a Way of Life' will take place, in which Anna Hartvigsen, co-founder of Female Invest, will analyse how investing evolves from a traditionally exclusive practice to an increasingly accessible and everyday habit.
The last day of #SouthSummit26 will also bring together investors, funds and actors from the entrepreneurial ecosystem in spaces organized by IE University such as the LP Forum, designed to exchange perspectives, align strategies and explore new investment opportunities in an environment of trust. In addition, the Deep Tech Forum will feature scientists, investors and technology companies to accelerate the transfer of research to market and promote disruptive technologies.
For South Summit Madrid 2026 press accreditations
If you want to attend South Summit Madrid 2026 as an accredited media, send us your name, surname, medium, e-mail, telephone, date of birth, DNI/Passport number and country of origin to: pablo.gomez@trescom.es ; ignacio.crespo@trescom.es
About South Summit
South Summit is the global platform that brings together all the actors in the innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem to promote the development of business opportunities among all of them. Its main meeting is South Summit Madrid, co-organized by IE University, which will hold its next edition between June 3 and 5 at La Nave. Throughout its fourteen previous editions, South Summit has brought together more than 42,500 startups, while the Startup Competition has resulted in more than 1,500 finalist startups, with a survival rate of 85% and more than 20,500 million dollars in investment raised.
After passing through Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Chile and Argentina, South Summit held its fifth edition in Brazil, also co-organized by IE University, in March 2026. This latest edition brought together more than 24,000 attendees from 70 countries, as well as more than 800 global leaders of the entrepreneurial ecosystem, 7,000 corporations, 3,000 startups and more than 1,000 investors with an investment portfolio of 250,000 million euros.
For more information: https://www.southsummit.io/e/madrid/
South Summit Trescom
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