Key takeaways

• ESC Digital & AI Summit 2026 brings together clinicians, data scientists, engineers, patient advocates, policy makers and industry to dive deep into the latest innovations in cardiology.
• In addition to showcasing the latest cutting-edge models, apps and wearables, key aspects related to ethics, regulation and implementation will be considered.
• The Summit aims to facilitate the co‑design of reliable solutions that health systems can safely adopt, clinicians can confidently use and patients can truly benefit from.

Sophia Antipolis, France – 3 November 2026: The ESC Digital & AI Summit 2026 will take place in Basel, Switzerland from 12–13 November. The event will showcase new innovations across the spectrum of cardiology: from wearables to improve cardiovascular disease prevention to AI-enhanced diagnostics to ‘smart’ hospitals for optimised care delivery.

The Summit is led by Professor Folkert Asselbergs, Chair of the ESC AI Gateway, Professor Sandy Engelhardt and Professor Nico Bruining, Editor-in-Chief of the European Heart Journal – Digital Health.

“The first ESC Digital & AI Summit last year was highly successful in bringing together experts involved in creating and implementing digital health and AI solutions from many different fields,” says Professor Engelhardt. “Across two immersive days, the second edition aims to continue to build this cross-disciplinary community, with as many opportunities for interaction between participants as possible.”

The event will bring together clinicians, data scientists, engineers, patient advocates, policy makers and industry not only to discuss the latest cutting-edge innovations, but also to consider key aspects related to ethics, regulation and implementation. “The Summit aims to facilitate the co‑design of reliable solutions that health systems can safely adopt, clinicians can confidently use and patients can truly benefit from,” explains Professor Asselbergs.

The programme goes beyond that of a traditional congress. In Pitch Sessions, start-ups and academic developers will demonstrate their innovations live, including soft robotic exosuits to help patients with heart failure to walk and a virtual reality experience of robotic heart valve repair surgery. In Roundtables, participants will discuss the major barriers to successful AI implementation at the point of care and how to fund digital innovation. A Debate Session will consider whether to ‘develop, download or buy’ when creating AI strategies for clinical use. Two keynote lectures, given by world-renowned experts, will focus on medical AI agents and what lies ahead for the future of AI in cardiac care. Twelve symposia will cover a range of topics from the early detection of cardiovascular disease using apps/wearables to enabling inclusive AI that leaves no one behind.

One of the highlights is the new Hackathon in which multidisciplinary teams will have 48 hours to work together to build a system that addresses one of five selected topics. The teams will work on solutions to issues such as improving surgery scheduling and integrating data to support more personalised care, before presenting their prototypes and learnings in the Grand Final. “The Hackathon will demonstrate what can be achieved with collaboration and will also help participants and the audience to reflect on challenges such as data privacy, workflow integration and scalability,” notes Professor Engelhardt.

The ESC Digital & AI Summit is proud to be an official partner event of European AI Innovation Month, connecting the cardiovascular community with Europe’s wider AI innovation ecosystem. Through events like the ESC Digital & AI Summit and projects such as Cardiovascular Health Data and AI Network (CHAIN), the ESC aims to accelerate the safe, effective and scalable adoption of digital tools to enhance clinical practice and improve the management of cardiovascular disease.

ENDS