EU-Colombia alliance prioritizes digital investment and AI growth.

Colombia’s Centro de Innovación, Productividad y Desarrollo Tecnológico (CINTEL) has announced that the European Union will serve as the guest of honor for the ANDICOM 2026 technology congress. This 41st edition of the regional digital conference is scheduled to take place from September 2 to September 4, 2026, in Cartagena, with preliminary activities beginning on September 1 at the Hotel Faranda Collection.

The European Union currently stands as the largest foreign technology investor in Colombia. According to figures provided by CINTEL, the 27-member economic bloc accounts for 22% of the direct investment in the nation’s tech sector and has been responsible for the generation of approximately 120,000 jobs.

“ANDICOM is a strategic opportunity to strengthen cooperation, drive European investments in the region, and advance a joint agenda that promotes digital transformation.” — François Roudié, European Union Ambassador to Colombia.

“The participation of the European Union in ANDICOM 2026 reflects a shared vision regarding the importance of digital transformation as a driver of economic and social development,” said Manuel Martínez, Executive Director of CINTEL. “This alliance allows us to connect Colombia and Latin America with one of the most advanced ecosystems in the world in terms of innovation, investment, and technological development.”

The 2026 event will center on the theme “Unleashing the Power of AI.” The academic agenda is designed to explore the impact of artificial intelligence on business productivity, national competitiveness, and the digital transformation of public institutions. The primary sessions will be held at the Complejo Las Américas.

François Roudié, the European Union Ambassador to Colombia, noted that the partnership highlights the bilateral commitment to a digital economy that is secure and human-centric. The ambassador emphasized that the conference serves as a strategic platform to strengthen European investments in the region and advance a joint agenda for sustainable growth.

Founded in 1991, CINTEL was recently re-certified as a Centro de Innovación y Productividad by the Ministerio de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación (MinCiencias) through a resolution issued in February 2026. The center remains a key component of the Colombian Sistema Nacional de Ciencias, Tecnología e Innovación, focusing on the application of information and communication technologies to improve regional productivity.

Above photo: CINTEL’s Manuel Martinez (left)0 with the EU’s François Roudié.

 

Medellín AI Summit outlines strategic growth for global investors.

The city of Medellín is scheduled to host the second edition of the “WOBI on AI and Business Transformation” summit on April 28, 2026. The event, which will take place at Plaza Mayor, represents the sixth major collaboration between the Alcaldía de Medellín and WOBI since the partnership began in 2017. This year’s forum focuses on the integration of artificial intelligence into corporate leadership and operational strategy, reinforcing the city’s status as a Special District of Science, Technology, and Innovation.

Martha Lucía Maldonado Nieto, Managing Director of WOBI Colombia, detailed the evolution of the event series, noting that previous editions held between 2017 and 2019 attracted more than 4,300 business owners. “Since last year, we have shifted these digital transformation conversations toward an unavoidable topic: Artificial Intelligence,” Maldonado stated. She emphasized that the summit is designed to analyze how AI supports macro-management themes rather than providing purely technical instruction. “WOBI is not about providing technical content. Our goal isn’t to teach people how to operate a specific AI tool, but rather to support them in their roles as leaders.”

“We are certain that only by sensitizing our leaders will we achieve real changes in organizations.” — María Fernanda Galeano Rojo

The upcoming summit features a lineup of international speakers covering diverse facets of the technology. Terry Gutiérrez, the General Manager for Tesla (TSLA) in Mexico and Latin America, will present on leadership algorithms. Nathan Furr, a professor at INSEAD, is set to discuss using AI to scale business models. Other speakers include marketing expert Giuseppe Stigliano and Andrew Mayne, a former prompt engineer at OpenAI, who will provide insights into the development of ChatGPT. Maldonado noted that the curation of this content is managed by WOBI’s team in New York to identify global trends relevant to executive decision-making.

María Fernanda Galeano Rojo, the Secretary of Economic Development for Medellín, will also address the assembly on the role of “Cities that Think.” Galeano Rojo highlighted the city’s commitment to ensuring high-level technological discourse reaches multiple sectors of the local economy. “We will have 600 leaders, more than 70% of whom will be from our city,” Galeano Rojo said. “At the same time, we will have parallel activities where we will be talking with these same speakers, as well as with entrepreneurs and university students. What we want is for all this knowledge to reach different sectors of our city.”

The event structure has transitioned to a membership model as of 2024, though individual tickets remain available. Maldonado confirmed that the average cost for participation is approximately $1,990,000 COP. The summit aims to build on the success of the inaugural AI edition, which saw 800 attendees from 350 companies and has since been exported to Madrid and Milan. “Artificial Intelligence is not just another trend; it is a new reality,” Maldonado added. “It is going to change and impact us in much the same way that the internet at some point changed the way we function.”

The Secretaría de Desarrollo Económico continues to prioritize digital skills and AI training as part of its broader economic strategy. According to Galeano Rojo, the objective of the Alcaldía de Medellín is to use these international platforms to drive social and organizational transformation. “We are betting on digital skills training and AI training,” she remarked. “We are certain that only by sensitizing our leaders will we achieve real changes in organizations.”

The one-day academic session will begin at 9:00 AM. Key regional entities including Rappi, McKinsey, and Procter & Gamble (PG) were cited as background for the expertise being brought to the stage, reflecting the professional trajectories of the invited speakers.

Digital services now comprise 3.5% of Colombia’s GDP.

The Asociación Colombiana de BPO (BPrO) has scheduled the 2026 CX Summit to take place in Cartagena, Colombia. The event, marking the 25th anniversary of the gremio, will gather more than 1,300 business executives and international specialists to analyze the evolution of the customer experience industry. The summit occurs as Colombia solidifies its position as a regional hub for knowledge-based services, a sector that currently represents approximately 3.5% of the national gross domestic product.

Scheduled for May 6 and 7, 2026, at the Hotel Hilton Cartagena, the conference will operate under the theme The Age of Intelligent CX. Discussions will focus on the integration of artificial intelligence, data analytics, and human empathy within digital economies. According to Ana Karina Quessep, executive president of BPrO, the integration of technology and human talent has become a critical factor for corporate and national competitiveness in demanding global markets.

“The organizations that manage to integrate intelligence, technology, and human talent are those making the difference in increasingly demanding markets.” — Ana Karina Quessep, Executive President of BPrO.

The speaker lineup includes Brad Cleveland, a strategist in customer experience; Tricia Wang, an ethnographer focusing on the intersection of data and human behavior; and Lisa X. Walden, an author specializing in workplace culture. Other confirmed participants include Efrén Martínez and Nicolás Uribe, who will address organizational well-being and digital transformation in Latin America.

On May 5, prior to the main summit, BPrO will host the GBS Experience. This session is designed to examine Colombia’s role as a strategic platform for Global Business Services and shared service centers. In collaboration with Chazey Partners, ProColombia, and Invest in Bogota, BPrO is developing a comprehensive study of the 2026 industry figures. This research aims to serve as the official reference for the Centros de Servicios Compartidos (CSC) and GBS sectors in the country, providing updated data on their economic impact and operational reach.

The event will include networking sessions and a commercial exhibition featuring representatives from the technology, financial, telecommunications, and retail sectors. Registration and the full agenda are available through the official event website. BPrO currently represents over 100 member companies specializing in customer relationship management and the broader service value chain in the US and Latin America.

Apple has asked Google to investigate setting up servers in its data centers to run a future version of Siri powered by Gemini, The Information reports.


Currently, Apple sends its more complex AI queries to Private Cloud Compute, a system that runs on Apple servers using Apple silicon chips. Today, only 10% of Apple's Private Cloud Compute capacity is said to be in use on average. The usage is low enough that some servers intended for Apple's AI cloud system are still in warehouses and have not yet been installed. This could change rapidly upon the launch of the next-generation version of ‌Siri‌, which could spike Apple's demands for cloud computing.

Apple has reportedly suffered from a cultural reluctance to bolster its cloud infrastructure for years, leading to the departure of some key cloud experts from the company, such as Patrick Gates. Gates pioneered the idea of bringing Apple chips to data centers, which later formed the basis of Private Cloud Compute. The company still strongly focuses on hardware devices and consumer features rather than their supporting cloud technologies, despite the growth of services, resulting in a neglect of the need for additional capacity.

At the time Apple realized it needed to use the cloud to support its AI efforts, its internal AI infrastructure was "beginning to decay." The company was amid the process of decommissioning old Nvidia-powered servers. Combined with financial pressure, this led the company to increasingly turn to third-party providers like Amazon.

For years, Apple banned its AI engineers from Google's cloud technologies because of privacy concerns. Apple software chief Craig Federighi repeatedly vetoed Google Cloud as an option for its AI computing requirements. In 2023, Google made changes to its security systems that satisfied Apple's privacy concerns. Apple then started to adopt Google's cloud infrastructure for artificial intelligence.

The issue has been exacerbated by problems with Private Cloud Compute, which takes longer to update than other servers. Moreover, the chips currently used in Private Cloud Compute servers were designed for consumer devices and are not optimized for AI workflows, meaning that they are not well equipped to run large models like Gemini.

Apple now wants to be prepared for a potential surge in AI use on its devices when the more powerful, Gemini-based version of ‌Siri‌ debuts later this year, motivating the request for Google to run ‌Siri‌ directly on its servers. See The Information's full report for more.

This article, "Report: Apple Asks Google to Run Siri on Its Servers" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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Apple has had yet another AI executive poached by Meta, despite reports that the social networking company is slowing hiring (via Bloomberg).


Frank Chu, one of Apple's team leaders focused on cloud infrastructure, training, and search, will join Meta's Superintelligence Labs, a division tasked with building advanced AI systems capable of performing at or beyond human-level intelligence.

Chu was involved with managing Apple's cloud-based large language models (LLMs), and was also influential in developing search features for Siri and Apple's entertainment services. For Meta, Chu will work on a new team called MSL Infra, responsible for AI infrastructure development.

Meta has spent billions of dollars on recruitment for its Superintelligence group in recent months, but the company is said to be slowing down hiring over concerns of an overheated market. The pause went into effect last week amid a broader restructuring of the group.

Fears that investments in AI are moving too fast weren't helped by reports earlier this week that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told a group of journalists that he believes AI is in a bubble. There was a broader sell-off of U.S. technology stocks following the news.

Apple has hemorrhaged around a dozen artificial intelligence staff to rivals since January. The exodus of staff from Apple's AI team over the last seven months has seen senior researchers leave variously for Meta, OpenAI, xAI, Cohere, and others.

One of the most notable recent departures was Ruoming Pang, head of Apple's Foundational Models team, who joined Meta last month after being lured by CEO Mark Zuckerberg with a $200 million pay package.

The talent drain coincides with Apple's struggle to update Siri by integrating LLMs. A chatbot-like version of the virtual assistant was one of the key Apple Intelligence features that Apple promoted at last year's WWWDC, but it has yet to arrive.

Apple is said to be considering using third-party AI models for Siri rather than its in-house technology, following an executive restructuring. During Apple's recent earnings call, Apple CEO Tim Cook said the company is "making good progress on a more personalized Siri" that is powered by Apple Intelligence, and he reiterated that the features will be available next year.
This article, "Apple Loses Another Key AI Leader to Meta's Superintelligence Labs" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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