CNCF Reveals KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America 2026 Schedule, Adds New AI Inference + Agentic Track

Flagship event returns November 9–12 with sessions on production AI, platform engineering and cloud native security

Key Highlights

• KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America 2026 takes place November 9–12 in Salt Lake City, Utah, with the full schedule now live.
• AI Inference + Agentic is a new track focused on Kubernetes, AI inference, agentic workflows, GPU scheduling, model serving and observability for production AI systems.
• AI track sessions feature projects and tools, including vLLM, KServe, Ray and OpenTelemetry, reflecting how cloud native infrastructure is being used to operationalize AI.
• Platform Engineering sessions explore internal developer platforms, self-service workflows, automation and operational practices that help teams scale software delivery.
• Security sessions address supply chain security, identity, runtime protection, vulnerability management and policy enforcement across cloud native.
• CNCF-hosted co-located events on Monday, November 9, include Cloud Native AI + Inference Day, ArgoCon, BackstageCon, CiliumCon and WasmCon.

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- The Cloud Native Computing Foundation® (CNCF®), which builds sustainable ecosystems for cloud native software, today announced the full schedule for KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America 2026, taking place November 9-12 in Salt Lake City, Utah. This year's program introduces a new AI Inference + Agentic track alongside established platform engineering and security programming, reflecting the growing role of Kubernetes in running production AI systems and operating infrastructure at scale.

As AI moves beyond experimentation and into production, the focus is turning to the infrastructure required to reliably support inference-heavy and agent-driven workloads at scale. The CNCF Annual Cloud Native Survey shows that Kubernetes has become a foundational platform for production workloads, with 82% of container users running it in production and 66% of organizations using generative AI workloads relying on it. As AI systems place greater demands on underlying platforms, the need for scalable, production-grade infrastructure and efficient inference has never been more urgent.

"AI is quickly becoming one of the largest compute workloads the industry has ever seen, and the shift from training models to running them in production is where the real engineering challenge lives now," said Jonathan Bryce, executive director, CNCF. "Kubernetes wasn't built for AI, but this community has spent years hardening it for exactly this kind of distributed, always-on workload. This year's KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America program brings together the people actually solving that problem in production."

Highlights at KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America 2026 include:

AI Inference + Agentic

Running generative AI and agentic systems in production requires rethinking cluster scheduling, GPU utilization and latency limits. The new AI Inference + Agentic track delves into practical patterns for orchestrating autonomous agents, optimizing model serving with tools like vLLM and KServe, and implementing dynamic routing and observability across inference pipelines. View the full AI Inference + Agentic track here.

Session Highlight:

• Kubernetes Solutions for Agent-Shaped Problems—Tim Hockin & Dmitry Berkovich, Google

Platform Engineering

Platform teams are being asked to make internal platforms more usable, more extensible and easier to operate as cloud native adoption scales, driving interest in projects and practices such as Backstage, Argo and GitOps workflows that can reduce friction without slowing engineering velocity. The Platform Engineering track focuses on the internal platforms, automation and operational practices that help teams support software delivery at enterprise scale. View the full Platform Engineering track here.

Session Highlight:

• When Infrastructure Breaks in Production: How EarnIn Brought Testing to the Full CNCF Stack—Priya Namasivayam, EarnIn

Security

Distributed, ephemeral, and automated cloud native environments create challenges for managing supply chain security, identity, and runtime protection, leading teams to increasingly adopt eBPF observability, policy enforcement and secure software development practices. The Security track covers the practices and controls needed to protect infrastructure across detection, identity and credential management, multi-tenancy, confidential computing and vulnerability management, with attention to technologies such as Cilium, eBPF and OpenTelemetry. View the full Security track here.

Session Highlight:

• Gone in 60 Minutes: Effectively Close the Exploitable Window with Detection as Code—Ben Hirschberg, ARMO & Dr. Constanze Roedig, fusioncore.ai

Beyond keynotes, developers will get hands-on experience through technical deep dives, project maintainer workshops, and co-located events covering WebAssembly, eBPF, observability and platform engineering.

CNCF Hosted Co-Located Events

CNCF-hosted co-located events will take place on Monday, November 9, and will offer community-led deep dives into topics including AI, security, observability and platform engineering. Events include ArgoCon, BackstageCon, Cloud Native AI + Inference Day and CiliumCon. The All-Access Pass provides attendees with access to any CNCF-hosted co-located event they would like to attend.

Registration

Standard registration for KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America is available until Wednesday, September 2, 11:59 p.m. MDT. Attendees can choose between a KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Only Pass or an All-Access Pass.

Scholarships

The Dan Kohn scholarship program provides complimentary registration or travel funding to support community members from underrepresented groups who would not otherwise be able to attend CNCF events. Applications for travel funding are open through Sunday, September 13, 11:59 p.m. MDT. The registration scholarship program is accepting applications until Sunday, October 4, 11:59 p.m. MDT.

Sponsorship

KubeCon + CloudNativeCon is made possible with support from our Diamond Sponsors: AWS, Google Cloud, HAProxy Technologies, Microsoft Azure, Nutanix, Oracle, Red Hat, ScaleOps, and Solo.io; Platinum Sponsors: Akamai, Canonical, Cast AI, Chainguard, ClickHouse, Crusoe, Dash0, Datadog, Docker, F5, Groundcover, IBM, IBM Kubecost, Infisical. Isovalent at Cisco, company, Nebius, PerfectScale by DoiT, Port, Portworx by Pure Storage, Postman, Sedai, Sidero Labs, Splunk, a Cisco company, SUSE, Teleport, Traversal, VMware by Broadcom, and YugabyteDB, as well as all of our Gold, Silver, and Start-up & End User sponsors.

Companies interested in sponsoring KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America should submit a request to [email protected] by Friday, August 14. To learn more, view the sponsorship prospectus.

About Cloud Native Computing Foundation

Cloud native computing empowers organizations to build and run scalable applications with an open source software stack in public, private, and hybrid clouds. The Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) hosts critical components of the global technology infrastructure, including Kubernetes, Prometheus, and Envoy. CNCF brings together the industry's top developers, end users, and vendors and runs the largest open source developer conferences in the world. Supported by nearly 800 members, including the world's largest cloud computing and software companies, as well as over 200 innovative startups, CNCF is part of the nonprofit Linux Foundation. For more information, please visit www.cncf.io.

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SOURCE Cloud Native Computing Foundation