Rebranded “the global urban festival” in recent years, MIPIM has increasingly drawn on public-sector voices to highlight global themes, with keynotes including former Italian prime minister Mario Draghi and ex-Finland PM, Sanna Marin. Mayor of London Sadiq Khan made his MIPIM debut last year to talk about London’s housing crisis. 

For new MIPIM director, Nicolas Boffi, geopolitics has shifted from representing “background noise” to becoming “a structural determinant for real estate allocations”, he tells IPE Real Assets. Pointing to phenomena such as nearshoring and Europe’s expected increase in defence spending, he hopes that MIPIM can help delegates “have a clearer view of what’s happening in the world”. This year’s keynote, economics Nobel prize winner Phillipe Aghion, is expected to set the tone for MIPIM by exploring “the economy, technology and sustainable growth”. 

“Geopolitical risk has evolved from a tail risk to a baseline assumption in the industry and in our valuation models too,” says JLL’s Alexandra Bryant, CEO, valuations & risk advisory. “The market appears to be adapting to a state of ‘permacrisis’ and sophisticated investors are now underwriting this uncertainty rather than waiting for it to resolve.”

In fact, some of these tensions may add a premium to geographies that can prove they have a stable investment environment, suggests Simon Williams, head of investment UK at BNP Paribas Real Estate. “We saw the UK paying off as a safe haven last year for international investors,” he says, “with half of all transactions executed by buyers originating equity from outside the UK.” MIPIM, meanwhile, is increasingly a place for “forging or resurrecting deals”, he adds, after becoming “a lot more serious in recent years”. 

Relative attractiveness

Many delegates will be looking for evidence that real estate is maintaining its attractiveness versus other asset classes, after 2025’s positive improvement in transaction volumes. Samir Amichi, head of real estate acquisitions Europe at Blackstone, says the firm is “optimistic about the outlook for European real estate, as the market appears to be moving from early stabilisation toward an acceleration in the recovery phase”. He adds: “Pricing across Europe has adjusted, helping to unlock transaction activity, while financing conditions are certainly supportive.” Amichi says the firm sees this reflected in “strong capital markets engagement, including tight public credit spreads, a very active year for European CMBS, and improved transaction liquidity”. He adds: “Taken together, these dynamics give us confidence to engage selectively as the year progresses.”

Bryant is also “optimistic for 2026”, noting that “the underlying real estate fundamentals are aligning in a way we haven’t seen for several years”. She adds that the “moderating inflationary landscape” bodes well for interest rates in the UK and the US and sees yields stabilising across sectors.

Tackling the investment topic, this year MIPIM will flank the RE-Invest Summit – a closed-door forum for sovereign wealth, pension and insurance funds – with the RE-Family Summit, another investor-only forum this time focused on family offices. 

Data centres and AI 

Global demand for data centres and the applications of artificial intelligence (AI) in business are two interlinked themes that have moved centre stage in the industry. Last year, MIPIM included a series of detailed AI workshops led by Josh Panknin, director of real estate AI research & innovation at Columbia University, who will be running another AI series this year. “This year we plan to go a little further into the practical processes that real estate companies need to think about when considering any technology applications, but AI more specifically,” he says, noting that “real estate companies are still struggling with technology”. “Most real estate companies seem to be slowly dipping their toes in, trying to avoid mistakes and failures.  But these mistakes and failures are a big part of the learning process,” he notes.

A few real estate giants, such as Blackstone, have been active both in harnessing AI for asset management – utilising significant amounts of proprietary data – and in pursuing data centre investment. Amichi says: “We believe AI is a mega-trend that is just getting going, and our focus in the real estate group is on the ‘picks and shovels’ behind this transformational change.” In terms of digital infrastructure, the firm saw a clear shift in Europe last year around “full-scale deployment and capital investment”, but still sees scope to do more. “The supply of truly scalable, power-ready sites remains limited in the region, placing a premium on market participants who can execute,” he adds.

Boffi sees the data centre boom increasingly involving investors of all stripes. “As brownfield sites on the outskirts of cities are redeveloped into single site and mixed-use projects, we will see the addition of smaller, ‘edge’ data centres, which is where traditional real estate stakeholders will take over,” he notes.

Key themes

Other key themes include the demand-supply mismatch in global housing, which will once again be the subject of a one-day summit, Housing Matters, gathering international experts. Urban economist Marie Defay, who will be speaking at the event, hopes to shine a light on social housing as a “powerful economic driver”. “It provides direct returns, in terms of poverty reduction, budget neutrality through increased tax revenues, and generates public health savings,” she says. 

An Irish delegation will also be in attendance to discuss the housing topic. “We have a really ambitious homebuilding plan over the next five years,” says Graham Doyle, secretary general at Ireland’s department of housing, local government and heritage. “We have a target to deliver 300,000 new homes by 2030, and we are putting our shoulders to the wheel to make that happen. International investment is critical to achieving that.”

Hugh White, head of national office investment at BNP Paribas Real Estate UK, meanwhile, declares that 2026 “will be the year of the office”. He says: “We have seen really encouraging rental growth over the last two years and I expect to have plenty of meetings about how offices are going to perform.” He adds: “You need investors to buy into it, but it really feels like that is happening this year.”