The 2026 Disruptive Growth & Life Sciences Conference takes place September 9–10 at The Westin New York Grand Central. There are years when a small-cap investor conference is a nice-to-have. This is not one of them. Two of the sectors that have moved most sharply in 2026, life sciences and the energy and compute infrastructure being built to support artificial intelligence, are both seeing significant activity at the small- and mid-cap end of the market. They are also sectors where understanding individual companies often requires more than reading filings and watching stock charts.
That makes the timing of the Moody Capital Solutions 2026 Disruptive Growth & Life Sciences Conference particularly interesting. The event brings both sectors together across two tracks and two days, giving investors access to companies operating in two areas that have helped shape the market this year.
Life sciences: the recovery arrived, but not everywhere. After three difficult years, biotech has turned a corner. The SPDR S&P Biotech ETF (XBI), a widely used proxy for small- and mid-cap biotech rather than the large pharmaceutical companies, posted a total return of roughly 80% over the twelve months ending in late August 2026. That is a meaningful change in sentiment for a sector that spent years under pressure.
There are fundamentals behind the move as well. The FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research had approved 36 novel drugs by August 28, 2026, a pace that puts the year alongside some of the agency’s more productive recent periods.
Dealmaking has been even stronger. CNBC reported biotech M&A at roughly $106 billion by early June, the best pace since before the pandemic, while BioPharma Dive counted 38 acquisitions completed by mid-year, the fastest run in seven years. With large pharmaceutical companies facing major patent expirations, many have been looking outside their own pipelines for new assets. That puts smaller biotech companies in an interesting position.
Richard H. Kreger, Moody Capital Solutions’ chairman and CEO, described the environment in the conference announcement as “unprecedented growth amid a spike of FDA approvals, corporate buyouts and deregulation.” The numbers help explain the optimism, but they also show that the recovery has not been evenly distributed.
Roughly 68 biotech companies raised more than $9.1 billion in venture capital during the first half of 2026, the strongest first half since 2022. About 76% of that capital, however, came through megarounds of more than $100 million, and roughly two-thirds of the rounds went to companies already conducting human trials.
The IPO market has followed a similar pattern. Thirteen biotech companies went public, raising a combined $4.5 billion at a median of approximately $302 million each.
For small-cap investors, that concentration matters. Capital is available, but much of it is going to a relatively narrow group of later-stage, more de-risked companies. Earlier-stage and lesser-known companies are still competing for attention and funding.
That is also where an in-person conference can be useful. Investors get the opportunity to hear directly from management teams, ask questions and compare companies that may receive little or no traditional research coverage.
AI’s infrastructure buildout is becoming its own investment story. The technology side of the conference is less about the companies making AI models and more about the infrastructure required to support them.
Morgan Stanley’s 2026 power outlook estimates that global electricity demand is increasing by more than one trillion kilowatt-hours annually through 2030, with AI-driven data centers accounting for nearly one-fifth of that growth.
Data center power requirements are projected to increase by roughly 126 gigawatts annually through 2028, an amount comparable to Canada’s entire annual electricity demand. In the United States alone, data center demand is forecast to reach 74 GW by 2028, against a projected shortfall of approximately 49 GW in available power.
For investors, the power gap is becoming an increasingly important part of the AI story.
Hyperscalers are expected to commit more than $1 trillion in capital expenditures across 2025 and 2026, while developers are already anticipating significant power constraints in 2027 and 2028. Morgan Stanley estimates that the resulting spread expansion could create roughly $350 billion in value across areas including natural gas, nuclear power, batteries and storage, microgrids and fuel cells.
Much of that opportunity sits outside the handful of companies that dominate AI headlines. It includes suppliers, developers and component manufacturers throughout the infrastructure chain, many of which are smaller companies with limited analyst coverage.
Kreger noted that “artificial intelligence has lit a fire for quickly scaling emerging growth companies,” and the conference’s technology and energy roster reflects that view. Presenting companies span data center development, battery storage, wave and ocean power, lithium, semiconductors and cybersecurity.
So why put these two sectors together?
At first glance, life sciences and disruptive technology may seem like an unusual pairing for one conference. From an investment perspective, however, they share some important characteristics.
Both require significant amounts of capital. Both can move dramatically around individual catalysts. And in both sectors, smaller companies often operate well outside the coverage universe of major Wall Street research firms.
They are also benefiting from unusually active investment environments in 2026.
Biotech has seen a resurgence in acquisitions, funding and public-market activity. AI infrastructure is attracting enormous amounts of capital as companies race to secure the power, data centers and technology needed to support growing demand.
The benefits of those trends have not reached every company equally. For investors willing to look further down the market-cap spectrum, that creates both opportunity and risk, and makes direct access to management particularly valuable.
That is where a two-day, two-track conference can serve a practical purpose.
More than 50 companies are expected to participate, many of them under-covered, giving investors the chance to hear their stories directly and evaluate them against a market backdrop that has become considerably more favorable for both sectors.
The case for showing up in September is fairly straightforward: buyers are active, capital is available, and some of the companies that could benefit from those trends are still operating well outside the market’s spotlight.
To register for the Moody Capital 2026 Disruptive Growth and Life Sciences Conference, visit: https://moodycapital.com/conference/
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