Boost Your IGF Experience

Enhance your IGF 2026 experience with exclusive pre-conference add-ons designed to help you accelerate connections. Whether you're a startup looking to build early momentum or an organization seeking greater visibility and engagement, IGF offers tailored opportunities to deepen your impact.    

Register Now

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Startup Power-Up Package

• Price: $95 per person
• Limited to 50 startups
• In-Person Pep Talk Session March 31, 10:30 a.m.-12 p.m

Give your startup an advantage designed to help you prepare, prioritize, and get the most out of your IGF experience. 

This exclusive package includes

• Early Access to Investor 1:1 Scheduling (via IGF mobile app): 
  Enjoy one full week of early access to book investor meetings before general scheduling opens, giving you a head start on securing high-value conversations with top investors. 
• In-Person Startup Pep Talk Session: 
  Join investors and IGF staff for a candid, interactive session on navigating IGF strategically. Learn what investors are looking for, how to maximize your pitch time, and tips for connecting across the event. 

Eligibility: This package is available only to startup attendees who did not apply for the 2026 Pitch Competition. Pitch Competition applicants will receive early scheduling access and complimentary access to a virtual Pep Talk session. 

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IGF Jumpstart Technical Workshops 

• Price: $145 per person
• Limited to 100 participants
• March 31, 1-4:30 p.m.

Jumpstart your IGF experience with immersive technical workshops designed to give you a 360° deep-dive into important technical topics shaping the future of energy. These half day sessions bring together NLR researchers, investors, startups, and industry leaders for focused discussions on what’s happening now, and what’s coming next, across the evolving energy ecosystem. 

Through hands-on learning, expert insights, and real-time dialogue, participants will explore cutting-edge innovations, emerging challenges, and actionable pathways to deployment. Whether you’re looking to deepen your technical understanding, explore emerging challenges, or connect with others across the energy ecosystem, these pre-conference technical workshops will help you to hit the ground running as IGF begins. 

Participants may move between rooms to attend the topics of greatest interest.

	Room 1	Room 2
1–2:30 p.m.	Powering the AI Economy	Critical Minerals the Energy Economy
2:45-4:30 p.m.	Thermal Systems for the AI Economy	Nuclear Energy Systems
Participants may move between rooms to attend the topics of greatest interest.

Workshop Topics

Powering the AI Economy: Demand, Data Centers, and the Grid 

Session Overview:  

Rapid advances in accelerated computing and model deployment are driving unprecedented demand for physical infrastructure, including data centers, power systems, and grid capacity. As AI workloads shift from training to inference, energy demand profiles are changing in ways that challenge traditional assumptions about 24/7 power needs, grid planning, and investment risk. 

This workshop provides a grounded, systems-level view of how AI-driven data center growth is reshaping electricity demand, and how power system flexibility, particularly energy storage, can enable scale without overbuilding the grid. 

In this Jumpstart workshop, participants will: 

Understand the macro trends driving AI-related power demand, including the shift from training to inference and its implications for infrastructure planning 

Learn how data centers actually interact with the grid, including where and when strain occurs - and where it doesn’t 

See how energy storage and grid flexibility can mitigate peak stress, reduce risk, and unlock faster deployment of new loads 

Gain a clearer framework for evaluating risk, cost, and opportunity at the intersection of AI, data centers, and power systems. 

Speakers: 

• Bill Livingood, NLR 
• Aaron Anderson, NLR 
• Paul Denholm, NLR 
• Anna Trendewicz, Future Energy Ventures 
• Brandon Owens, NYSERDA 

Critical Minerals the Energy Economy: Evolution, Revolution, and Path to Market 

Session Overview: 

As energy and advanced technology systems scale, access to critical minerals  is increasingly shaping deployment speed, cost, and resilience. Growing global demand and evolving technology needs are creating both near-term supply chain challenges and longer-term opportunities across the energy economy. 

This workshop offers a systems-level view of the critical minerals landscape, showing how minerals availability, processing, and manufacturing readiness shape commercialization today. Join NLR researchers and industry investors and experts as they explore evolutionary near-term process improvements alongside the longer-term potential of revolutionary breakthroughs that could reshape minerals production and U.S. competitiveness. The session highlights where gaps across the value chain create opportunities for startups, investors, and the broader energy industry to improve cost, performance, and scalability across different investment timelines. 

In this Jumpstart workshop, participants will: 

Gain an overview of key critical minerals supply chains, market dynamics, and commercialization status 

Understand how minerals constraints affect cost, performance, and scale across energy and infrastructure applications 

Identify where process and mid-stream innovations can unlock near-term value and support domestic manufacturing 

Explore selected case studies that illustrate pathways to de-risk processes and accelerate commercialization 

The session will feature a brief landscape overview and focused technical examples from NLR researchers, followed by a joint panel discussion with researchers, industry leaders, and investors focused on commercialization pathways and market readiness. 

Speakers: 

• Andrea Watson, NLR 
• Tony Burell, NLR  
• Bob Bell, NLR  
• Tem Tumurbat, Nomadic Venture Partners 

Thermal Systems for the AI Economy: Cooling, Heat, and Commercial Opportunity 

Session Overview:  

As AI workloads scale, thermal management has become a critical aspect on data center deployment. Cooling requirements drive site selection, operating costs, reliability, and overall energy demand. At the same time, waste heat represents an underutilized resource that could enable new system designs and value streams. 

This workshop explores how thermal systems shape data center performance today, and how emerging approaches, particularly geothermal heating and cooling, can unlock new deployment pathways for AI infrastructure. 

In this Jumpstart workshop, participants will: 

Understand the thermal landscape for data centers and the thermal systems that support them including current cooling approaches and emerging system-level solutions 

Learn where thermal demand is driving energy use, cost, and siting decisions 

Explore innovations in chip-level cooling, water use efficiency, and geothermal cooling and heat utilization as a scalable sink, and potential source, within AI infrastructure 

Examine the commercialization pathways, barriers, and investment considerations for deploying advanced thermal systems 

Speakers: 

• Guangdong (GD) Zhu, NLR 
• Josh McTigue, NLR
• Aaron Anderson, NLR
• Allison Hinckley, Overture 

Nuclear Energy Systems: Commercialization Pathways and Market Readiness  

Session Overview:  

The nuclear energy landscape is evolving rapidly, with advanced fission and fusion technologies moving from research and demonstration toward commercial deployment. As interest from investors, utilities, and data center operators grows, so does the urgency around resolving key gaps in licensing, supply chains, and market structure. 

This workshop provides a systems-level view of where nuclear technologies stand today and what it will take to bring them to market. Participants will hear from national lab researchers and industry and investor panelists on the realities of commercialization - what's working, what's missing, and where the opportunities are. 

In this Jumpstart workshop, participants will: 

Gain a clear picture of the current fission and fusion ecosystem, including the state of SMR demonstration and advanced reactor development 

Understand the key technical, regulatory, and supply chain gaps that remain on the path to deployment 

Explore how public-private partnerships are accelerating commercialization and de-risking investment 

Hear directly from industry and investors on near- and mid-term market readiness and what signals they're watching 

Speakers: 

• Katie Richardson, NLR 
• Vivek Agarwal, INL 
• Robin Lynn Sampson Wong, LLNL 
• Julien Barber, Emmerson Collective 
• Conner Galloway, Xcimer