Augusto Ardiles Diaz: How Cities Become AI Innovation Labs | Intelligence at the Frontier 2026

It's really nice to be here in San Francisco. Thank you, David, for the invitation. We met some months ago in funding the common events in Buenos Aires and really impressive what what I think that you are doing here in San Francisco. And it's really honor to present you all the thing that we are doing in Buenos Aires for AI. So, before to start, I was really impressed with with the presentation of Luke.

I think that he made a really clever and a smart description about how AI is going to modify all the human works. Um for people that are in public service like me and like came from the private sector, I used to work with different family office in Buenos Aires and I used to work in the traditional financial sector in Argentina with the governor of the Central Bank and then as member of a board or a financial institution, uh try to understand how to improve and grow the AI ecosystem is so important. And I have a short story that I want to share with you that is regarding about Galileo Galilei. I know if some of you in the room know about that, but as Galileo was forced by the authority of his times to publish his renounced the idea that Earth moves across the sun. And according to the legend, after doing so, he quietly said, "And yet it moves."

So, whatever he after he spoke is real or not, this is stored. The main point is that truth does not succumb in truth because authority receives it. So, our role as public service is really try to grow and to improve this ecosystem. So, for us, can we turn the to the next slide? Buenos Aires part of the main challenge why emerging technology is that they evolve faster than traditional regulatory frameworks.

So, governments often have a dilemma or regulate too early maybe can slow down innovation but regulating too too late can create risk. So, cities can help to solve this tension and I want to make a short stop in that point that because Argentina is a federal republic with 24 states and one of these states is the city of Buenos Aires. That means that we are already a couple of states to try to try different technology and to work close to this AI environment. So, because of the scale and the institutional facility that we have cities can function as real world laboratory where new technology and new policy approach can be tested. So, Buenos Aires to well increasingly thinking about public policy in that terms not only as regulation but as institutional infrastructure for innovation.

That's why we are going to create an AI district and Patricia said before. So, if we can turn to the next slide, please. Thanks. Uh when we look at the technology ecosystem around the world, we have three structural factors that tend to appear again and again and Silicon Valley close to Somerset Park is a maybe the best example of that. So, the first is the talent.

Second is the access to capital. And third institution that allow experimentation at a scaling. The first two widely discussed it, but the third, the institutional design, is often underestimated more in country than Argentina or in country of Latin America. So, as I mentioned before, city have a unique opportunity here. They can create environment where new technology can be tested, adopted, and escaped in real world condition.

This is the approach we are taking in Buenos Aires, and that's why for example, we have a sandbox low two and I'm going to speak about later. So, as we can see in the next slide, our strategy is focused on reducing friction for innovation. One of the way we are doing this is through the use of soft low frameworks. Instead of trying to regulate a rapidly evolving technology, through right to rules, we prioritize tools such as guidance, technical standards, and best practice. These instruments provide orientation for developers and company who are championing experimentation.

So, the principle behind this approach is simple. We will not penalize technology development itself, but we ensure accountability when the use of technology cause harm or violates rights. This approach is closer to the model historically used in the United States, allowing innovation to evolve while addressing risks when they materialize. So, we really want to improve innovation, and we don't want that innovation was regulated too early, so this is low down the regulation. So, our regulatory sandbox that you could see in the next exercise, is the another key influence that we use for regulator sandboxes.

These are controlled environments where company and startups can test emerging technology under the supervision of public authorities. So, for builders and entrepreneurs, sandboxes reduce regulatory uncertainty, and for investors, they reduce the institutional risk. And for governments, they provide way to understand some new technology before deciding for my regulation. In most cities, these sandboxes environment are particularly useful for several regulation sectors. This includes artificial intelligence, autonomous mobility, technology, of course, a self-driving system, and robotics, too.

In that sense, sandboxes are not only regulatory tools, they are also learning mechanisms for institutions. They allow experimentation, controlled testing, and institutional learning before large-scale deployments. So, I want to focus now in our ALB 3 that we are going to launch next month. So, we beyond regulatory instrument, we are also working on this physical dimension on innovation ecosystem. It will be in the historical downtown of Buenos Aires.

And it will be a special architecture designed to concentrate a companies, research and university that you will see here, a startups and investor, and technology department. What can happen in our city after pandemic? Our downtown area is completely empty. You have a really good connection for subway, for train, and for buses, and you have entities. So, we are really working in the idea to create a a cluster as it is donation.

Out to do that, we'll make benefits tax benefits. So, if you have an AI company and you sell ton of it in our AI district, you are no not going to pay local taxes. So, local taxes will be zero. Yeah? Of course, that this benefits is not only the the way that we want to create the cluster.

We are really were so close to the most importance um companies of AI in order to create an AI adoption council. So, bringing together academia and experts. And these companies in a Maybe we'll see in the next slides. This AI adoption council will be help us in the theoretic model of how to maybe regulates or not regulates AI. Yeah?

And then we have an executive board of AI company. We have most of the most popular AI company like Meta, Siemens, Google, Salesforce, Oracle that are basically the world size or have the lower representation in world size and are part of this executive board of AI company. So, they help, for example, us give you some courses to the citizens or give you some courses to as well as new companies in order to have a first approach to the AI device. Maybe is 30 or 25 years ago someone come to this room and said, "Well, uh if you don't have internet in the next year, you could not work." Once of that will think that Well, maybe we're crazy because we could still live.

We could still go on to go to the dealer or we could study. But at these days, for example, if you don't have we don't have internet in this room, we feel that we need something. I mean that is part of our life. What I'm completely sure that in the future, maybe in 1 or 2 year, in companies that really don't have a good approach to the AI, they they will be less competitive and they will could not be part of the world in the next year. So, it's so important that the big AI companies could help the small and medium company in order to give a proof, to give capacitation, to give courses.

So, as the city of Buenos Aires that have a close relation with a more than medium company, I have extremely relation with the AI company. We are really focused on have a good coordination to offer this kind of courses. And of course, in the AI district, you you will have one of the most important university of Argentina that is Usama University or San Andres University or Austral University. They there are three university that are so popular in Argentina and are so important because of his level. So, this university works so close with the city of Buenos Aires and so close to the companies in order to design the courses that we want to give to the small and medium companies and to the citizens.

Of course, for my grandma maybe it will be a bit complicated to understand AI, but maybe not for my mom. So, we are really want to focus in the generation that really want to make a chance to get inside the AI. So, as I mentioned, another key dimension is As as may be very not particularly fast, artificial intelligence will transform the natural world of approximately sector looks uh look deep as we really clear explanation of that. So, our strategy therefore for which we expand opportunity rather than deleting technology challenge. So, we are working as as says in this initiatives to increase the AI adoption abroad the companies.

We are also expanding the training program from the university partnership that I mentioned. Um we are promoting reskilling and upskilling initiatives so that the working can adapt to the new technology landscape. The goal is to ensure that the benefits of artificial intelligence spreads through the productive system of our chips. So, as you will see, the AI district is uh well, the Here you have all the program and how we are trying coordinate all the works. And for us, the AI technology is not just a technological challenge, it is an institutional challenge.

Um as we are saying, we really want to lead this transformation. We are completely sure that there is no other AI district in Latin America. And if we want to lead this transformation, uh we need to build ecosystems where talent, where capital, and where institution reinforce its ally. And simply as I mentioned three or four times in this speech, can play this important role in building this emergence. We need to encourage and we need to take the risk to try to do that.

So, when I see working to become a model, we are so proud about our human research, about our human capital. Because Buenos Aires represent 20% of the GDP of Argentina, but it's only a 200 water kilometer city. And we represent through the 80% of the service equation of the whole country or the whole Argentina. So, we really need to work close to the AI companies and we need to work close to the AI ecosystems because our mining, our water, our oil and gas are our people and our human resource as I said it before. And AI not the future, it is the present.

Maybe it will change the way that we see the more than that the the first industrial revolution. So, this is our idea on how to change the mind and pass to the theory to the practice application. Of course that we are starting, of course that and completely sure that we are we are one of the first in the region. So, we are going to make mistakes because we are humans, but we are completely sure that this is the way we need to try it to improve and to have collaboration between companies, citizen and a small big companies, citizen and a small and big companies. So, thank you for the time and so really happy to be here and welcome from everyone in Buenos Aires.

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Woo.