Smart Computing Frontier (SCF 2026)
International Conference on Cognitive Computing (ICCC 2026)
https://www.servicessociety.org/iccc , August 22 - 25, 2026, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Theme: Agentic AI as a Service (AAIaaS) for Cognitive Computing
Engineering Cognitive Capabilities for Agentic Systems
Introduction
The International Conference on Cognitive Computing (ICCC) is an international forum for advancing computational theories, architectures, methods, systems, and applications related to cognition.
Cognitive Computing studies how computational systems perceive information, direct attention, represent knowledge, form and retrieve memories, learn from experience, reason under uncertainty, make decisions, and interact effectively with people and environments.
The field draws on artificial intelligence, cognitive science, knowledge representation, machine learning, signal processing, human–computer interaction, decision science, and brain-inspired computing. Its goal is not merely to imitate human cognition, but to develop computational mechanisms that support adaptive, explainable, context-aware, and cognitively effective systems.
The emergence of Agentic AI creates new opportunities to integrate perception, memory, reasoning, planning, reflection, and action into coherent computational architectures.
ICCC 2026 welcomes original research, system innovations, empirical studies, cognitive models, benchmarks, tools, user studies, and evidence-based applications that advance Cognitive Computing.
ICCC 2026 Theme
The theme of ICCC 2026 is:
Agentic AI as a Service for Cognitive Computing
Agentic AI systems must do more than generate responses. To pursue complex goals, they need cognitive capabilities such as attention, context understanding, memory, knowledge organization, reasoning, planning, learning, self-monitoring, and decision-making.
For the ICCC community, the central question is:
How can cognitive capabilities be modeled, integrated, evaluated, and delivered as dependable services for agentic systems?
An agentic cognitive system may perceive a situation, focus on relevant information, retrieve prior knowledge, reason about alternatives, construct a plan, monitor its progress, identify errors, revise its strategy, and explain its decisions.
Agentic AI is transforming Cognitive Computing:
· From perception to contextual understanding
· From pattern matching to knowledge-guided reasoning
· From temporary context to structured and persistent memory
· From response generation to planning, reflection, and action
· From isolated models to integrated cognitive architectures
· From uncertain outputs to calibrated and explainable decisions
· From automation to human–AI cognitive collaboration
Realizing this vision requires advances in cognitive architectures, memory systems, knowledge representation, causal and commonsense reasoning, uncertainty management, metacognition, cognitive evaluation, and human oversight.
ICCC 2026 invites researchers and practitioners to develop the cognitive foundations required for adaptive, trustworthy, and responsible agentic systems.
Scope and Topics of Interest
ICCC focuses on computational mechanisms and systems for perception, attention, memory, knowledge, reasoning, learning, decision-making, metacognition, and human–AI cognitive collaboration.
Research whose primary contribution concerns general AI-model performance, multimodal content generation, cloud or edge infrastructure, IoT devices, Web protocols, general service engineering, or big-data systems should be submitted to the corresponding SCF conference unless it makes a clear contribution to Cognitive Computing.
Topics include, but are not limited to:
1. Cognitive Architectures and Agentic Cognition
· Cognitive architectures for Agentic AI
· Perception–memory–reasoning–action loops
· Cognitive planning, reflection, and metacognition
· Goal management and adaptive decision-making
· Multi-agent cognition and cognitive coordination
· Cognitive capabilities and intelligence as services
2. Knowledge, Reasoning, and Learning
· Knowledge representation and knowledge-based reasoning
· Symbolic, neural, and neuro-symbolic cognition
· Commonsense, causal, analogical, and temporal reasoning
· Probabilistic, evidence-based, and uncertain reasoning
· Concept formation, abstraction, and generalization
· Continual, lifelong, and experience-based learning
3. Attention, Context, and Memory
· Computational attention and information selection
· Context modeling and situation awareness
· Working, episodic, semantic, and procedural memory
· Memory formation, consolidation, retrieval, and forgetting
· Long-term memory for agents and cognitive systems
· Spatial, temporal, and event-based cognition
4. Human and Brain-Inspired Cognitive Computing
· Human–AI collaborative reasoning and decision-making
· Cognitive assistants and intelligence augmentation
· User models, cognitive load, and adaptive interaction
· Social, affective, and collaborative cognition
· Neuromorphic and brain-inspired computing
· Cognitive sensing and brain–computer interfaces
5. Trustworthy Cognitive Systems
· Explainable and interpretable cognitive systems
· Reasoning faithfulness and decision traceability
· Uncertainty estimation and confidence calibration
· Cognitive bias, hallucination, and consistency
· Safety, alignment, accountability, and human oversight
· Privacy and ethical issues in cognitive systems
6. Evaluation, Applications, and Practice
· Benchmarks for reasoning, memory, planning, and cognition
· Evaluation of cognitive architectures and agents
· Cognitive systems for healthcare, education, and science
· Enterprise decision support and knowledge work
· Personalized and assistive cognitive technologies
Deployment studies and industry experience
Paper Tracks
The ICCC 2026 technical program includes four submission tracks.
Research Track
The Research Track welcomes original and technically rigorous contributions that advance cognitive theories, models, architectures, methods, or computational mechanisms.
Research papers should:
· Clearly define the cognitive-computing problem
· Explain the novelty relative to relevant literature
· Present a technically or theoretically sound approach
· Use appropriate baselines, benchmarks, experiments, or behavioral evidence
· Provide rigorous and reproducible evaluation
· Discuss limitations and threats to validity
· Demonstrate a generalizable contribution to Cognitive Computing
Application and Industry Track
The Application and Industry Track focuses on deployed cognitive systems, human–AI decision-support tools, cognitive assistants, and evidence-based practical applications.
Papers should:
· Describe a significant real-world cognitive problem
· Explain the cognitive capabilities and system architecture
· Present deployment evidence, user studies, or measurable outcomes
· Discuss trust, interpretability, privacy, safety, and operational constraints
· Identify lessons transferable to other settings
· Clarify the practical or system-level innovation
Papers in this track do not need to introduce a new cognitive algorithm. However, they should contribute through cognitive-system design, integration, evaluation, user impact, or generalizable practical knowledge.
Short Paper Track
The Short Paper Track welcomes focused contributions, including:
· Promising early-stage cognitive research
· Novel cognitive models or architectural concepts
· Emerging challenges and research visions
· Benchmarks, datasets, tools, and reusable artifacts
· Focused empirical findings or negative results
· Concise application and user-study reports
Short papers must clearly state their contribution, evidence, relationship to prior work, and limitations.
Special Paper Track
The Special Paper Track addresses designated emerging topics and community priorities announced by ICCC 2026. Submissions should follow the requirements of the corresponding special-track call.
Paper Submissions
All submissions must report original and unpublished work and must not be under review elsewhere at the time of submission.
Each manuscript will be reviewed by at least three program committee members. Papers will be evaluated according to:
· Relevance to ICCC
· Originality and significance
· Technical or theoretical quality
· Strength of evaluation
· Clarity and organization
· Reproducibility
· Research, cognitive, or real-world impact
Papers should position their contributions accurately within the relevant international literature. Authors are encouraged to cite ICCC and other conferences or journals when genuinely relevant. Citation of any particular venue is not required.
Research Track and Application and Industry Track manuscripts are limited to 15 pages in the Springer LNCS format. Short Paper Track manuscripts are limited to 8 pages. Authors may purchase up to two additional pages, subject to the applicable publication fee. Special Paper Track submissions should follow the limits specified in the corresponding call.
Authors must use the official Springer LNCS templates:
Electronic submission in PDF or Word format is required. Manuscripts that do not follow the required format or exceed the permitted page limit may be returned without review.
A Research Track submission that primarily presents a deployed application or operational solution may be recommended for consideration by the Application and Industry Track.
At least one author of each accepted paper must register for ICCC 2026 and present the paper at the conference.
Paper Submission
Research Track
Submit to the ICCC 2026 Research Track: https://edas.info/newPaper.php?c=34933&track=136056
Application and Industry Track
Submit to the ICCC 2026 Application and Industry Track: https://edas.info/newPaper.php?c=34933&track=136055
Short Paper Track
Submit to the ICCC 2026 Short Paper Track: https://edas.info/newPaper.php?c=34933&track=136057
Special Paper Track
Submit to the ICCC 2026 Special Paper Track: https://edas.info/newPaper.php?c=34933&track=136058
Detailed instructions for manuscript preparation, submission, review, panels, tutorials, and workshops are available on the SCF author-guidance pages.
Conference Proceedings
Accepted and presented ICCC 2026 papers will be published in the conference proceedings, which are scheduled to appear in Springer’s Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) series.
Springer makes LNCS proceedings available to major abstracting and indexing services. Final inclusion of a volume or individual paper is determined by the policies and selection criteria of each indexing service.
Under the current SCF publication arrangement, the ICCC 2026 proceedings are expected to become freely accessible through SpringerLink four years after publication.
Extended versions of selected papers may be invited to relevant partner journals. Journal submissions must include substantial extensions and will undergo the journal’s independent editorial and peer-review process.
Awards
ICCC 2026 will recognize outstanding contributions through:
· Best Paper Award
· Best Student Paper Award
For the Best Student Paper Award, the first author must be a full-time student.
Important Dates
Research, Application and Industry, and Short Paper Tracks:
Early-birds paper submission due: March 20, 2026
Review comments to Early-birds paper submission: April 10, 2026
Regular paper submission due: May 21, 2026
Review comments to Regular paper submission: June 15, 2026
Special track paper submission due: June 21, 2026
Review comments to Special track paper submission: June 25, 2026
Camera-ready manuscripts due: June 28, 2026
Conference dates: August 22 - 25, 2026
Academic Development
ICCC has developed as an international forum connecting cognitive science, artificial intelligence, knowledge representation, signal processing, human–computer interaction, and computing-enabled services.
Its scope has expanded from cognitive sensing and cognition-inspired platforms to integrated systems capable of memory, reasoning, learning, reflection, decision-making, and human collaboration.
Recent ICCC conferences were held in Seattle in 2018, San Diego in 2019, virtually in 2020 and 2021, Hawaii in 2022, Shenzhen in 2023, Bangkok in 2024, and Hong Kong in 2025.
ICCC 2026 continues this development by examining how cognitive capabilities can provide the foundations for dependable Agentic AI.
ICCC and Smart Computing Frontier
ICCC is a member of the Smart Computing Frontier, a federation of ten co-located international conferences.
Within SCF, ICCC focuses on the computational mechanisms and architectures underlying cognition, including attention, memory, knowledge, reasoning, learning, decision-making, and metacognition.
Its scope is complementary to the other SCF conferences:
· ICWS focuses on Web interfaces, APIs, protocols, and Web-based services.
· SCC focuses on service engineering, lifecycle management, and value creation.
· CLOUD focuses on cloud infrastructure, platforms, and resource management.
· BigData focuses on large-scale data systems and analytics.
· AIMS focuses on AI models, multimodal understanding, and content generation.
· EDGE focuses on computing systems near data sources and users.
· ICIOT focuses on connected devices, sensing, communication, and physical action.
· ICBC focuses on blockchain technologies and trusted ecosystems.
· METAVERSE focuses on immersive and persistent digital environments.
This structure enables interdisciplinary collaboration while preserving ICCC’s distinctive identity as the conference devoted to cognitive mechanisms and cognitive computing systems.
Organizing Committee
ICCC 2026 Organizing Committee
Program Chairs
Prof. Ruifeng Xu, Harbin Institute of Technology
Prof. Yirui Wu, Hohai University
Dr. Huan Chen, SF Technology Co., Ltd.
Prof. Ting Jin, Hainan University
Prof. Fahmy Ferdian Dalimarta, Universitas Muhammadiyah Tegal
Operations Committee
Dr. Jing Zeng, China Gridcom Co., Ltd.
Dr. Yishuang Ning, Tsinghua University
Dr. Sheng He, Kingdee International Software Group Co., Ltd.
Dr. Zhuolin Mei, Jiujiang University
ICCC 2026 Program Committee
Mr. Dwith Chenna, Magic Leap
Prof. Supratik Mukhopadhyay, Louisiana State University
Contact Information
For inquiries regarding ICCC 2026:
iccc AT ServicesSociety DOT org
For questions regarding Smart Computing Frontier conferences:
confs AT ServicesSociety DOT org
Researchers and practitioners are welcome to join the Services Society community and participate in future ICCC and SCF professional activities.
Sponsors
