Third annual India event to spotlight AI, observability, platform engineering and more
MUMBAI, India, March 11, 2026 -- The Cloud Native Computing Foundation® (CNCF®), which builds sustainable ecosystems for cloud native software, today announced the conference sessions for KubeCon + CloudNativeCon India 2026. The event, scheduled for 18-19 June, 2026, in Mumbai, will bring together adopters and technologists from leading open source and cloud native communities.
India's rapidly growing startup ecosystem makes it an important hub for innovation in AI and cloud native technologies. In 2024, the country ranked fourth globally for newly funded AI companies, and 76% of Indian startups are leveraging open source AI to innovate while keeping costs low. Against this backdrop, the two-day conference brings the community together to share knowledge and accelerate this momentum. The program features keynotes, 55 sessions, 8 lightning talks, and breakout discussions focused on the technologies shaping the industry, including AI, observability, platform engineering, operations, and security. Attendees will gain insights into the latest cloud native trends and practical approaches that can help India's builders and startups continue to scale and innovate. View the full schedule.
"We recently found that while 82% of organizations have adopted Kubernetes for their AI workloads, only 7% are deploying AI on a daily basis," said Jonathan Bryce, executive director, CNCF. "With their global market leadership and ranking third in terms of CNCF committers, Indian contributors are setting the pace for AI-native innovation, which is set to help close this gap. The KubeCon + CloudNativeCon India schedule reinforces and supports the growing need for retraining and upskilling to meet the inference needs of this new era of AI."
Highlights at KubeCon + CloudNativeCon India 2026 include:
AI + ML
Explore how cloud native approaches further support AI innovation to manage GPUs, orchestrate AI workloads and support emerging architectures such as AI agents and model routing.
Session Highlight: Beyond VLLM: Distributed LLM Inferencing With Llm-d on Kubernetes - Ravindra Patil, Red Hat
View the full AI + ML track here.
Cloud Native Novice
Foundational concepts and practical lessons to help newcomers connect core computer science principles with real-world cloud native tools and workflows.
Session Highlight: Phippy's First Steps Into Kubernetes - Hrittik Roy, vCluster & Saloni Narang, Kubesimplify
View the full Cloud Native Novice track here.
Observability
Dive into tools and practices for collecting, processing, and analyzing telemetry across metrics, logs and traces to improve system reliability, performance and accountability.
Session Highlight: Who Watches the Watchers? From Closed Observability To Open Control at Scale - Aditi Gupta, JioHotstar; Madhu Patel, Adobe; Sandeep Kanabar, Gen
View the full Observability track here.
Operations + Performance
Discuss practical strategies for managing production environments, optimizing core components like the Kubernetes API server and strengthening workload resiliency.
Session Highlight: The Leapfrog Upgrade Playbook: Upgrading When You're Years Behind - Yug Gupta, Walmart Global Tech
View the full Operations + Performance track here.
Platform Engineering
Understand how teams build internal platforms that enable self-service infrastructure, manage complexity and support emerging workloads like AI.
Session Highlight: Unity in Diversity: Architecting "Shared-First" Kubernetes Platforms for Life-Critical Workloads - Manoj K R & Siddiq Tanveer M A, Motorola Solutions
View the full Platform Engineering track here.
Security
Learn approaches such as zero trust architectures, identity and authorization frameworks and stronger container isolation.
Session Highlight: SPIFFE & OpenFGA Based Identity/Authz for Agentic AI - Rahul Jadhav, AccuKnox
View the full Security track here.
Please view the schedule for the full KubeCon + CloudNativeCon India 2026 agenda.
Dan Kohn Scholarship Program
The Dan Kohn Scholarship program offers registration and travel funding scholarships for KubeCon + CloudNativeCon India. Application deadlines:
- Registration Scholarship application deadline: 3 May (11:59 PM PDT /12:29 PM IST).
- Travel Funding application deadline: 5 April, 11:59 PM PDT/ 12:29 PM IST
Registration
Standard registration for KubeCon + CloudNativeCon India is available until Tuesday, 5 May June, 11:59 PM IST.
Sponsorships
KubeCon + CloudNativeCon India is made possible with support from our Platinum Sponsors: Cast AI, Chainguard, Microsoft Azure, and VMware by Broadcom, as well as all of our Gold, Silver, and Local Supporter + Start-Up sponsors.
Companies interested in sponsoring KubeCon + CloudNativeCon India should submit a request to sponsor@cncf.io before 7 May. View the sponsorship prospectus.
Additional Resources
- CNCF Newsletter
- CNCF on X
- CNCF Website
- Learn About CNCF Membership
- Learn About the CNCF End User Community
About Cloud Native Computing Foundation
Cloud native computing empowers organizations to build and run scalable applications with an open-source software stack across public, private, and hybrid clouds. The CNCF hosts critical components of global technology infrastructure, including Kubernetes, Prometheus, and Envoy, bringing together top developers, end users, and vendors. Supported by nearly 800 members, including the world's largest technology companies and over 200 innovative startups, CNCF is part of the nonprofit Linux Foundation. For more information, visit www.cncf.io.
The Linux Foundation has registered trademarks and uses trademarks. For a list of trademarks of The Linux Foundation, please see our trademark usage page. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.
Media Contact
Haley White
The Linux Foundation
pr@cncf.io
Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1894611/CNCF_Logo.jpg
View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/in/news-releases/cncf-unveils-kubecon--cloudnativecon-india-2026-schedule-302710278.html
