Munich 2026: A security conference where tech isn’t an afterthought

The 62nd Munich Security Conference opened on 13 February 2026 in Munich, Germany, and this year’s gathering feels different from past editions.

For decades, Munich was about jets, troops, and treaties. Today, cyber and AI are no longer peripheral; they are part of the architecture of security itself.

Cyber risks, digital infrastructure, and emerging technologies like AI now sit alongside tanks and treaties on the agenda as European leaders try to make sense of a world where digital threats and geopolitical tensions are deeply intertwined.

Sponsors of the conference, such as the Tech Strategy Initiative, explicitly include technological frontier issues in the program, signalling that debates once confined to tech policy circles have broken into mainstream security discourse.

On day one, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz laid out a blunt message: the post-World War II order is fraying, and Europe can’t take its digital or geopolitical ...