CIAC2026 Agenda

8:00 a.m. - onwards

Registration Opens

Open all day

8:00 a.m. - 9:00 a.m.

Coffee & Networking

9:00 a.m. - 9:10 a.m.

Opening Remarks and Conference Introduction

9:10 a.m. - 10:00 a.m.

CIAC Opening Plenary:
Understanding Major Economic Trends and Canada-Asia Opportunities

This opening session sets the stage for CIAC2026 with a broad look at the major economic forces shaping growth trajectories in Asia and the implications for Canada’s engagement in the region. This session frames how shifting supply chains, digital transformations, sustainability imperatives, and the demand for secure supply across the conference’s three sectors of focus - food security, energy security, and infrastructure - are redefining opportunities for collaboration.

10:00 a.m. - 10:30 a.m.

Coffee, Networking, Transition

10:30 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.

CIAC Concurrent Dialogue 1:
Food, Fertilizer, and Foreign Policy: The New Geopolitics of Agri-Food

Food security is a major global policy challenge and a priority across Asia that economies and organizations address in relation to local contexts and capabilities. It is simultaneously an issue of domestic concern and geopolitical imperative. How are governments and organizations in Asia and Canada navigating this terrain? And how can Canadian agriculture, agri-food, fertilizer and agri-technologies contribute to food security – and foreign policy – priorities in Asia?

CIAC Concurrent Dialogue 2:
The AI-Compute Conundrum: Powering the AI Revolution

As use of artificial intelligence accelerates globally, the race to build digital infrastructure—especially data centres and compute power—is intensifying. But the energy demands of large-scale AI training and deployment are creating new stresses on energy systems and climate commitments. This session explores how governments, energy producers, and technology developers across Canada and Asia are grappling with the dual challenge of enabling digital growth while decarbonizing the energy base that powers it.

CIAC Concurrent Dialogue 3:
Logistics, Ports, and Corridors: Investing in Canadian Infrastructure for Transpacific Trade

This session explores the investments, policy shifts, and public-private collaborations needed to strengthen Canada’s infrastructure to enhance Canada-Asia trade—from port modernization and intermodal hubs to green supply chains and digital customs integration. With a focus on how Canada can build the next generation of smart, resilient, and Asia-connected infrastructure, the panel will examine both domestic investment gaps and regional opportunities to deepen Indo-Pacific trade connectivity.

11:30 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.

Coffee, Networking, Transition

12:00 p.m. - 1:30 p.m.

CIAC Lunch Plenary:
Pursuing Economic Security Amid Global Trade Disorder

This high-profile plenary explores the tariff turmoil, geopolitical competition, and broad-ranging uncertainty that are reshaping global trade while offering insights into impacts and responses across the Indo-Pacific. In a region where shifting supply chains are a reality, how can governments, firms, and institutions (including Canadian) pursue their interests while making more significant contributions to regional economic security?

1:30 p.m. - 1:45 p.m.

Coffee, Networking, Transition

1:45 p.m. - 2:45 p.m.

Sector Networking Sessions

Food Security

Energy Security

Infrastructure

2:45 p.m. - 3:00 p.m.

Coffee, Networking, Transition

Executive Sessions

2:45 p.m. - 3:45 p.m.

Invitation-only

Coffee, Networking, Transition

3:45 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.

Driving Trade and Investment through the Indonesia-Canada Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (ICA CEPA)

4:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.

5:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.

Gala Reception & Networking

6:00 p.m. - 8:30 p.m.

Gala Dinner

8:00 a.m. - onwards

Registration Opens

Open all day

8:00 a.m. - 9:00 a.m.

Coffee & Networking

CIAC Morning Plenary:
Strategic Infrastructure for a Fragmented Future: Climate, Security, and Technology at a Crossroads

9:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m.

In an era marked by polycrisis—climate shocks, great-power rivalry, and technological disruption—critical infrastructure is more than concrete and cables: it is a battleground for values, resilience, and long-term prosperity. This plenary will examine how Canada and Asia can shape the future through smart, sustainable infrastructure investments that address both national security and shared planetary risks.

Coffee & Networking, Transition

10:00 a.m. - 10:30a.m.

10:30 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.

CIAC Concurrent Dialogue 1:
Strategic Investment Partnerships in the Agri-Food Sector

This session focuses on deepening investment ecosystem connections between Canada-based and Asia-based companies, governments, service providers and innovation hubs to catalyze and grow transpacific agri-food cooperation. What are some recent examples of successful agreements in the Canada-Asia agri-food space? How are these advancing food security? What factors act as roadblocks to deal making? And what are some novel pathways to cooperation?

CIAC Concurrent Dialogue 2:
Critical Minerals, Clean Tech, and Strategic Dependencies

The growth and deployment of clean technologies at scale relies on stable and accessible supplies of critical minerals, including copper, nickel, lithium, cobalt, graphite, rare earths, and others. Canada possesses important deposits of these and other critical minerals, and has notable strengths in the mining and processing segments of several critical minerals supply chains. How can Canada become a more significant and dependable partner of choice for Asia in critical minerals supply chains?

CIAC Concurrent Dialogue 3:
Digital Foundations: Building the Infrastructure for a Connected Future

Digital infrastructure—broadband networks, data centres, undersea cables, cloud computing, cybersecurity, 5G and more—is an essential pillar of economic competitiveness and resilience. This panel explores how companies, governments and institutions in Canada and Asia can collaborate to expand secure, sustainable, and inclusive digital systems that underpin modern trade and innovation. We examine best practices and strategies for technology partnerships that ensure digital connectivity becomes a shared foundation for prosperity and trust.

Coffee & Networking, Transition

11:30 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.

12:00 p.m. - 1:30 p.m.

CIAC Opening Plenary:
Building Canada-Asia Collaboration Networks

This session spotlights Canada-Asia collaborations in higher education and business that are connecting ecosystems, driving innovation, and catalyzing opportunity.

Coffee & Networking, Transition

1:30 p.m. - 2:00 p.m.

2:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m.

CIAC Concurrent Dialogue 1:
Technology to Feed 10 Billion: Data, Traceability and Innovation

As global population growth intensifies demand for sustainable food systems, technology will play a decisive role in ensuring reliable, transparent, and efficient production and distribution. This session investigates how actors in Canada and Asia can co-develop and scale agricultural innovations—from precision farming and biotech to technology-powered traceability—that enhance productivity, reliability and trust across supply chains to advance long-term food security for a growing world.

CIAC Concurrent Dialogue 2:

Global Investment to Meet Asia’s Energy Future: Mapping Demand and Opportunity

This session explores the scale, diversity, and strategic direction of energy investment to supply markets across Asia—home to the world’s fastest-growing energy demand. As countries across the Indo-Pacific pursue parallel goals of economic development, energy security, and decarbonization, the need for capital investment in energy infrastructure has never been more urgent—or more complex. The panel provides a region-wide scan of energy demand, which technologies and fuels are gaining traction, and where Canada fits into the Indo-Pacific energy landscape, including LNG and nuclear technologies.

CIAC Concurrent Dialogue 3:

Infrastructure as Strategy: Corridors of Power and the New Geopolitical Alliances

This dialogue focuses on major powers using infrastructure investment as a geopolitical tool and where Canada fits into evolving regional infrastructure conversations. This includes how ports, railways, energy grids, and digital corridors are redrawing the map of influence in the Indo-Pacific region, and ways Canadian infrastructure capabilities and energy technologies such as nuclear can contribute to fulfilling Asia’s diverse infrastructure needs.

Coffee & Networking, Transition

3:00 p.m. - 3:30 p.m.

CIAC Closing Plenary

3:30 p.m. - 4:15 p.m.

4:15 p.m. - 5:30 p.m.

CIAC2026 Agenda

Registration Opens

Coffee & Networking

Opening Remarks and Conference Introduction

CIAC Opening Plenary: Understanding Major Economic Trends and Canada-Asia Opportunities

Coffee, Networking, Transition

CIAC Concurrent Dialogue 1: Food, Fertilizer, and Foreign Policy: The New Geopolitics of Agri-Food

CIAC Concurrent Dialogue 2: The AI-Compute Conundrum: Powering the AI Revolution

CIAC Concurrent Dialogue 3: Logistics, Ports, and Corridors: Investing in Canadian Infrastructure for Transpacific Trade

Coffee, Networking, Transition

CIAC Lunch Plenary: Pursuing Economic Security Amid Global Trade Disorder

Coffee, Networking, Transition

Sector Networking Sessions

Coffee, Networking, Transition

Executive Sessions

Coffee, Networking, Transition

Driving Trade and Investment through the Indonesia-Canada Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (ICA CEPA)

Gala Reception & Networking

Gala Dinner

CIAC Opening Plenary:
Understanding Major Economic Trends and Canada-Asia Opportunities

CIAC Concurrent Dialogue 1:
Food, Fertilizer, and Foreign Policy: The New Geopolitics of Agri-Food

CIAC Concurrent Dialogue 2:
The AI-Compute Conundrum: Powering the AI Revolution

CIAC Concurrent Dialogue 3:
Logistics, Ports, and Corridors: Investing in Canadian Infrastructure for Transpacific Trade

CIAC Lunch Plenary:
Pursuing Economic Security Amid Global Trade Disorder