This edition of SplinterCon turns to how artificial intelligence is reshaping the conversation about internet fragmentation. On one hand, AI takes the censorship tug-of-war to a new level: more practitioners are experimenting with AI-driven techniques in their circumvention tooling, while government-level attackers increasingly deploy AI to detect and block anomalous signals.

On the other, a paradigmatic shift in how information is consumed, from the browser window to the LLM-powered chat as a common interface to news, facts and meanings. The redefinition of familiar ecosystems of knowledge creation and consumption is the key prize in the classical information freedom battle. The technology stack, and the geopolitics behind hardware, energy and data, press us to add yet another dimension to internet fragmentation.

During this three-day gathering, the SplinterCon community will bring together developers, researchers, donors and policymakers to approach the topic from different angles and in different formats: plenaries, round-tables, workshops, and exhibitions.