The electricity bill AI cannot ignore
The 21st EVER Monaco opens at One Monte-Carlo on October 14 with the energy transition's defining question: artificial intelligence promises to optimize everything it touches. Somebody has to power the promise.
On October 14, the congress halls at One Monte-Carlo fill with the people who are paid to take the energy transition seriously. EVER Monaco returns for its 21st edition, organised by Monaco Développement Durable under Sébastien Lubert: two days of conferences and startup pitches on sustainable mobility, energy, decarbonisation, and the technology that has muscled its way to the centre of all three, artificial intelligence.
The framing is deliberate. More than two decades on, the question has inverted. AI is now embedded in transport, infrastructure and industrial processes, and its promise is that it will optimise energy use across all of them. The 2026 edition puts that promise next to its cost: the energy and resource demands of the digital systems themselves. The forum's pitch is that Monaco is the place to hold both ideas at once.
The programme is built around that tension. Conferences draw on the Princely Government's urban planning and mobility directorate, the energy utility SME, the Monaco Ocean Alliance, and representatives of Nice Côte d'Azur airport, with contributions from Government Advisor Marie-Pierre Gramaglia. The startup pitch competition, the forum's headline format, puts around twenty selected innovators before a professional jury. Their projects span the conversion of CO2 into synthetic fuels, advanced thermal energy storage, the recovery of hard-to-recycle plastics, digital twins for building performance, electric and autonomous mobility, sustainable shipping, and solar-powered navigation.
The event opens with the young. Opening remarks come from student representatives of the FANB college, and the first session is dedicated to future generations, environmental awareness and the protection of the ocean. It is a Monegasque ritual by now: the principality presents its future to its future.
The corporate side is in the room too. Virginie Cotta, general secretary of the Société des Bains de Mer, said at the September press conference: "We are delighted to be here and are truly thrilled to take part in the 21st edition of Ever Monaco. SBM is deeply committed to corporate social responsibility, an area where our president, Stéphane Valeri, expects us to show decisive ambition." SBM sits on the decarbonisation panels and on the pitch competition jury.
For Monaco, the forum is an instrument. The principality cannot move global energy policy, but it can convene the people who try, and it can attach its name to the attempt. Twenty-one editions in, EVER has become part of the October calendar the way the yacht show is part of September's: a recurring claim that the world's problems get a hearing on the Rock.
The 2025 edition tested electric limits in deserts and cities; the 2026 edition asks whether intelligence itself can be made efficient. Admission is free, and the programme is built for the people who decide where money goes next. That is the audience Monaco knows best.
None to date. The Chronicle corrects errors promptly and transparently. Read our corrections policy.
