ASHRAE concluded its 2026 Annual Conference, held June 27–July 1 in Texas, with more than 2,233 registered HVAC&R and building science professionals. The event also marked the start of Sarah E. Maston’s term as 2026–27 ASHRAE President and her focus on improving the efficiency, health and resilience of existing buildings.
More than 100 technical sessions were presented across eight tracks. Topics included data center cooling, cybersecurity, dehumidification system design, indoor environmental quality and commissioning.
Highly attended sessions covered waterless two-phase cooling for megawatt-scale AI data centers, HVAC system design for data centers, A2L refrigerants in data centers and fluid quality monitoring for direct-to-chip liquid cooling. The conference also included 10 ASHRAE Learning Institute courses, including training on HVAC control sequences, dehumidification and A2L refrigerant system requirements.
Maston announced ASHRAE HVAC Hero, an educational video game in which players manage facility maintenance challenges, apply ASHRAE Standards and Guidelines, and work to reduce energy use and carbon emissions. The project was supported by Daikin, Vertiv and the ASHRAE Foundation.
ASHRAE also introduced Vision 2035, a framework intended to guide the Society’s volunteer leaders and strategic plans through 2035. Its five focus areas are personalized and resilient environments, regenerative development, human-centered and equitable design, intelligent building lifecycle, and low-carbon and circular built environments.
“We need to figure out how team ASHRAE, with its wealth of knowledge and educational offerings, can help create a game plan to make existing buildings more efficient, healthy and resilient,” said Maston. “This year we are going to focus on codes, technical guidance and building our team.”
