The Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (IAC) is taking preliminary steps towards the building of an 8-m class optical-infrared telescope to be placed at the Observatorio del Roque de Los Muchachos (ORM) on the island of La Palma in the Canary Islands, Spain. This paper presents a brief description of the preliminary conceptual design of the control system for the telescope and its instrumentation in all planned modes of observation and configurations. An outline of the devices that are to be controlled and the functions that are to be performed is presented, together with a description of the system architecture. The system will be distributed and highly modular, and will allow for an easy and efficient exchange of instruments, focal stations and observing modes. It will also be designed so that technological upgrades can be implemented at low cost and minimum down-time.