After the huge interest in Grid Foundation Models at our Harvard GridFM workshop we are excited that we are getting back together for a GridFM Conference, hosted by INESC TEC in Porto, Portugal on October 29th and 30th, 2026. There are a few updates. We plan to publish all abstracts of the conference in special edition. In addition, the best posters will be invited to write a conference paper for this special edition.

Registration is now open. Please realize that there is a small fee which is used for catering and the facilities. I hope that you understand.

We welcome poster applications. Poster application is now open until Sept. 25th, 2026. If your poster were accepted, you will be informed by October 6th or earlier. There will bea best poster cash awards. I addition best posters will be invited to write conference paper for a special edition. More details will be available soon. Stay tune. Please apply here:

We welcome tutorials related to GridFM and AI for Grid. Tutorial applications are now open until Sept. 25th, 2026.

A tentative outline of the conference can be found below. Registration and poster submissions will open at the end of August.

Times	October 29th		October 30th
9:00 – 9:30	Keynote 1 (Chair: Ricardo Bessa – INESC TEC )		Keynote 2 (Chair: Ricardo Bessa – INES TEC)
9:30 – 11:00	Grid Foundation Models – State of the Union (Chair: Hendrik Hamann – SBU, BNL)		AI for Transmission Grids (Chair: Marc Lauby – NERC)
11:00 – 11:15	Break		Break
11:15 -12:45	AI Grid Ready Data (Chair: Elissaios Sarmas – EPU NTUA)		AI for the Control Room (Chair: Venkat Banunarayanan – NRECA)	AI for Grid Planning (Chair: Jonghwan Kwon – ANL)
12:45 – 14:00	Lunch with Tutorials (Chair: Etienne Voss, Alban Puech)		Lunch
14:00 – 15:30	Trusted Grid AI (Chair: Spyros Chatzivasileiadis – DTU)	Digital Twins for the Grid (Chair: Antonello Monti – RWTH Aachen)	GridFM Dynamics (Chairs: Francois Miralles – HQ, Jochen Cremer, TU Delft)	AI for Power Markets (Chair: Farzaneh Pourahmadi, DTU)
15:30 – 15:45	Break		Break
15:45 – 17:15	AI Grid Optimization (Chair: Thomas Brunschwiler and Alban Puech – both IBM Research)	AI for Distribution Grids (Chair: Pedro Vergara Barrios – TU Delft and Fei Ding – NLR)	Agentic AI for Grid (Chairs: Tianqiao Zhao – UTA, Jonghwan Kwon – ANL)	Digital Spines and Collaboration (Chair: Ricardo Bessa – INES-TEC)
17:15 – 19:00	Poster Session with Reception (Chair: Tiago André Teixeira Soares – INESC TEC )		Conclusion with Poster and Hackathon award winners to be announced

Location: University of Porto; FEUP R. Dr. Roberto Frias s/n, 4200-465 Porto; Faculty of Engineering – University of Porto – Google Maps:

Accommodations: For general hotel information please use this link.
We also have a block reserved at the Axis hotels.
Please use the Code: GRIDFM_2026 for a 10% discount at the booking website during 27 October to 02 November 2026.

Hackathon: A GridFM hackathon is planned to occur in parallel with the event. More details to come.

Social event: More details to come.

Organizing committee:

• Ricardo Jorge Bessa – INES TEC
• Hendrik F. Hamann – Stony Brook University, Brookhaven National Laboratory, GridFM.org
• Antonello Monti – RWTH Aachen
• Venkat Banunarayanan – NRECA
• Thomas Brunschwiler – IBM Research
• Spyros Chatzivasileiadis – Technical University of Denmark
• Farzaneh Pourahmadi – Technical University of Denmark
• Tiago André Teixeira Soares – INES TEC
• Elissaios Sarmas – EPU NTUA
• Francois Miralles – Hydro Quebec
• Jochen Cremer – TU Delft
• Jonghwan Kwon – Argonne National Laboratory
• Pedro Vergara Barrios – TU Delft
• Tianqiao Zhao – University of Texas at Arlington
• Alban Puech – IBM Research and ETH Zuerich
• Keith Benes – GridFM.org
• Jurij Paraszczak – GridFM.org
• Marc Lauby – NERC
• Etienne Voss – IBM Research