On 10-11 May 2023 in Brussels, leading researchers, policy makers and industry experts came together for the much-anticipated two-day Concertation and Consultation Meeting on Computing Continuum: From Cloud to Edge to IoT. The event was a significant gathering for the European ICT community, fostering discussion and planning on the future of research and innovation directions.
The “Concertation and Consultation Meeting on Computing Continuum” was orchestrated by the Open Continuum project, with the support of Unlock CEI and SWForum, under the strategic direction of the European Commission’s (EC) DG Connect. Open Continuum is one of the Coordination and Support Actions managing the EUCloudEdgeIoT.eu initiative.
The event focused on the intersection of Cloud, Edge, and IoT computing, discussing the management of services and data across the computing continuum. As the demand for cloud computing services and edge computing is projected to proliferate, the event recognised the importance of addressing new data processing needs at the edge and emphasised the integration of AI and Machine Learning.
During the opening speech, Pearse O’Donohue, EC’s Director of Future Networks, underlined the importance of collaboration and having digitisation as a key priority for “building a leading European society with advanced technologies” with data spaces as an essential enabler. In addition, Manuel Mateo Goyet, EC’s Deputy Head of the Unit of Cloud and Software, highlighted the importance of measuring for the data continuum, adding that the “European Commission’s Edge observatory plays a crucial role in monitoring the performance and reliability of edge computing”. Finally, Max Lemke, EC’s Head of Unit of Internet of Things, delivered an insightful keynote on the importance of “chips act, data strategy, AI [Artificial Intelligence] at the edge, and decentralised swarm intelligence for the cloud, edge and IoT continuum”. He also emphasised the importance of economic and market factors, with metaOS, open platforms, standardisation, and interoperability being “critical factors for success”.
The first day of the event was concertation-oriented, featuring numerous presentations and networking opportunities. Horizon Europe RIAs that started in 2023 pitched their projects and introduced future plans, while more mature projects shared their success stories and lessons learned. These presentations facilitated knowledge exchange and set the stage for future collaborations. Moreover, all invited projects prepared and exhibited roll-up posters for conversation and engagement during breaks, and a tour of all projects was organised.
Additionally, the cooperation mechanisms of EUCloudEdgeIoT.eu (called “Task Forces”) were also presented and were joined by Rolf Riemenschneider, EC’s Head of Sector IoT, for a Questions and Answers Session.
On the second day, the focus shifted to consultation, with a goal to guide the thinking for the next Horizon Europe Work Programme (2025-2027). Short papers were selected through a Call for Expressions of Interest, showcasing research and innovation trends across academic researchers, industrial players, policy makers, and SMEs.
The day concluded with discussions on future R&I priorities and plans, contributing to strategic R&I roadmaps, with the presence of Inside Industry Association (represented by Paolo Azzoni, Secretary General), HipEAC (represented by Koen de Bosschere, Coordinator), SWForum (represented by Juncal Alonso, Coordinator), AIOTI (represented by Dr. Ovidiu Vermesan, Chairman of WG Research and Innovation), European Alliance for Industrial Data, Edge and Cloud (represented by Dr. Ignacio M. Llorente, Chairman at Edge/Cloud WG and CEO of OpenNebula Systems), FIWARE Foundation (represented by Clara Pezuela, VicePresident Funded Programs) and NESSI (represented by Prof. Dr. Andreas Metzger,Steering committee vice chair). Their conclusions, roadmaps and slides can be downloaded below.
The event was a valuable opportunity for participants to learn from EU-funded initiatives, showcase their work, establish contacts within the European Cloud, Edge and IoT community, and learn about industry best practices. Attendees contributed to shaping agendas and decisions on future investments, increasing the competitiveness of the European industry in the Cloud, Edge, and IoT domains
In the concluding session, European Commission representatives highlighted some key takeaways emerged from the rich discussions, including:
- Improving operations and achieving autonomy in the continuum while respecting European values and green principles.
- Strengthening the role of AI in empowering the convergence from components to the full Cloud-Edge-IoT continuum for supporting immersive technologies towards virtual worlds and the industrial metaverse, transitioning towards the next generation MetaOS.
- Considering the critical importance of #security throughout the whole development process.
The Concertation and Consultation on Computing Continuum event has undoubtedly advanced the conversation on the future of Cloud, Edge, and IoT computing. It is clear that as the boundaries between these domains blur, an open and inclusive society leveraging these technologies is within reach.
Access the event material
Here you can access the various research roadmaps that were presented.
- Here you can access the The European vision and research directions in the Cloud-Edge-IoT domain for 2025-2027 (Executive Summary)
- Here you can access the The European vision and research directions in the Cloud-Edge-IoT domain for 2025-2027 (Distillation of the Concertation Meeting in Brussels on May 11, 2023)
- Here you can access the Driving Innovation in the Cloud-Edge-IoT Continuum (A summary of the Concertation Meeting in Brussels on May 10, 2023)
- Here you can download all the expressions of interest that were submitted. A booklet will also be available soon.
- Here you can download the EUCloudEdgeIoT brochure.
- Here you can download the Research Community booklet from EUCloudEdgeIoT.
- Here you can download the specific MetaOS booklet.
- Here and here you can access the EU-IoT Reports 1 “A Federated Future: Mapping of the future directions towards the Cloud Edge IoT from IoT and Edge community” and Report 2 “EU-IoTs CSA’s SRIA meta-analysis database”, respectively.
- Download the photos taken during the event, day 1 and day 2
The white paper on the event will be available soon.
Below you can go through the agenda and download each linked presentation.
8:50 – 09:00 Opening Doors
09:00 – 09:30 Registration & Welcome coffee
09:30 – 09:40 Welcome and Introduction to the event | Auditorium, Dr Monique Calisti (Event Moderator, CEO – Martel Innovate) (slides here)
09:40 – 09:45 Introduction to EUCloudEdgeIoT | Auditorium, (Albert Seubers – Open Continuum/Martel Innovate (slides here)
09:45 – 10:15 Opening Speech by the European Commission | Auditorium, (European Commission: Pearse O’Donohue – Director of Future networks; Manuel Mateo Goyet – Deputy Head of Unit of Cloud and Software; Max Lemke – Head of Unit of Internet of Things) (slides here)
10:15- 11:00 Pitch Session – Part 1 | Auditorium
- Cognitive Cloud: AC3; ACES; CloudSkin; CODECO; COGNIFOG; DECICE; EDGELESS; MLSysOps; SovereignEdge.Cognit (slides here)
- Open Source for Cloud Services: AERO; OpenCUBE; RISER; Vitamin-V (slides here)
(3 min each)
11:00 – 11:15 Coffee Break
11:15 – 11:45 Pitch Session – Part 2 | Auditorium
- Swarm Computing: INCODE, OASEES; OpenSwarm; SMARTEDGE; TaRDIS (slides here)
- Potential of drones as multi-purpose vehicle – risks and added values: SPADE (slides here)
- Technologies and solutions for compliance, privacy preservation, green and responsible data operations: TEADAL; TRUSTEE (slides here)
(3 min each)
11:45- 12:15 EUCEI Cooperation Mechanisms | Auditorium (Task Forces Leaders) (slides here)
- TF1 Strategic Liaisons (5min)
- TF2 Open Source Engagement (5min)
- TF3 Architecture (5min)
- TF4 Ecosystem Engagement (5min)
- TF5 Market and Sectors (5min)
- TF6 Communications (5min)
12:15 – 12:45 Q&A Session (with Rolf Riemenschneider – European Commission’s Head of Sector IoT)| Auditorium
12:45- 14:45 RIAs “Tour” and networking lunch | Auditorium and Mezzanine, Guided tour through RIAs banners
14:45 – 15:15 Q&A Session | Auditorium
15:15- 15:45 Pitch Session – Part 3 | Auditorium
- MetaOS: aerOS; FLUIDOS; ICOS; NEBULOUS; NEMO; NEPHELE (slides here)
(3 min each)
15:45- 17:00 Success Stories and Lessons Learned | Auditorium (For Horizon Europe projects)
- ICT40: PHYSICS; DATACLOUD; CHARITY; SERRANO; Ai-SPRINT (slides here)
- ICT50: COSMOS; ELEGANT; FOCETA; PIACERE; VeriDevOps; XANDAR (slides here)
- ICT56: ASSIST-IoT; INGENIOUS; IOT-NGIN; TERMINET; INTELLIOT; VEDLIOT (slides here)
(4 min each)
17:00 – 17:15 Coffee Break
17:15- 18:45 The Way Forward | Auditorium
Hub4Cloud panel “Resource orchestration and adaptation in the continuum”: Moderated by Giovanni Rimassa (Hub4Cloud Coordinator – CIO Martel Innovate)
- Manos Varvarigos – Project Coordinator – SERRANO
- Fulvio Risso – Technical Coordinator – FluiDOS
- Rute C. Sofia – Project Coordinator – CODECO
SWForum panel “Software models, tools and processes for the continuum” : Moderated by Juncal Alonso (SWForum Coordinator – Project Manager, TECNALIA) and Joh Favaro (SW Forum D&C Manager, TRUST-IT) (slides here)
- Saddek Bensalem (Project Coordinator)- FOCETA
- Matija Cankar (Technical Coordinator)- PIACERE
- Ramon Canal (Project Coordinator) – VITAMIN – V
EU-IoT Panel “Federated Architectures for Distributed Intelligence” : Moderated by Tanya Suárez, CEO, BluSpecs (slides here)
- Carlos Palau, UPV, Coordinator AerOS, Coordinator ASSIST IoT
- Panagiotis Sarigiannidis, UOWM, Coordinator TERMINET
- Akis Kourtis, Demokritas, Coordinator OASEES
19:30 Social Dinner | Networking Space, Ticket entry
08:20 | Opening Doors
08:30 – 09:00 Registration & Welcome coffee | Entry and Networking Space
9:00 – 09:10 Welcome and Introduction Dr Monique Calisti (Event Moderator, Martel Innovate) (slides here)
9:10 – 09:25 Opening Speech by the European Commission | Auditorium, (Max Lemke – European Commission’s Head of Unit of Internet of Things) (slides here)
09:25 – 11:05 Consultation on the Research Agenda 2025-2027 Part 1 | Auditorium
- 09:25 – AIOps: Software tools for supporting AI across the Continuum (60 min) (slides here)
- Martel Innovate GMBH (Presenter: Massimo Neri)
- 6G Flagship, University of Oulu, Finland (Presenter: Lauri Lovén)
- University of Pisa (Presenter: Patrizio Dazzi)
- Fraunhofer Cluster of Excellence Cognitive Internet Technologies CCIT (Presenter: Michael Fritz)
- University of Western Macedonia (Prof. Panagiotis Sarigiannidis)
- IBM Research Europe (Presenter: Ambrish Rawat)
- TECNALIA (Presenter: Jesus Santamaria)
- Politecnico di Milano (Presenter: Danilo Ardagna)
- Trialog (Presenter: Dr. Amelie Gyrard)
- Q&A session (20 min)
- 10:25 – Computing Continuum infrastructure/European Cloud servers (40 min) (slides here)
- Bielefeld University (Presenter: Jens Hagemeyer)
- INRIA (Presenter: Isabelle Chrisment)
- UPV-SRIPAS (Presenter: Prof. Carlos E. Palau – UPV)
- Barcelona Supercomputing Center & Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (Presenter: Josep Lluís Berral)
- Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (Presenter: Jürgen Becker)
- Semidynamics (Presenter: Roger Espasa)
- Q&A session (20 min)
11:05 – 11:20 Coffee Break
11:20 – 13:20 Consultation on the Research Agenda 2025-2027 Part 2 | Auditorium
- 11:20 – Next Generation MetaOS and distributed IoT-edge objects (60 min) (slides here)
- Eviden (Presenter: Lara López)
- University of Patras and π-NET (Presenter: Prof. Alexios Birbas)
- Airbus (Presenter: Pierre Arbez)
- Tarides (Presenter: Miklos Tomka)
- VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd (Presenter: Karoliina Salminen)
- AIOTI (Presenter: Dr Ovidiu Vermesan)
- University of Oslo (Presenter: Geir Horn)
- Nokia (Presenter: Thibaud Biatek)
- Siemens AG – T CED (Presenter: Jochen Nickles)
- Q&A session (20 min)
- 12:20 – Cybersecurity, privacy, interoperability, Open Source and Software Engineering for the Computing Continuum (50 min) (slides here)
- CETIC (Presenter: Sebastien Dupont)
- XLAB d.o.o. (Presenter: Matija Cankar)
- Institute of Communication and Computer Systems – ICCS (Presenters: Panagiotis Kokkinos, Emmanouel Varvarigos)
- INRIA (Presenter: Thomas Watteyene)
- H2020 Physics & Harokopio University of Athens (Presenter: George Kousiouris)
- TRUST-IT Services (Presenter: Claudio de Majo)
- Eclipse Foundation (Presenter: Gaël Blondelle)
- FORTH Foundation (Presenter: Manolis Marazakis)
- Q&A session (20 min)
13:20 – 14:30 Networking Lunch | Auditorium and Mezzanine
14:30 – 16:00 Research Roadmaps
- Ignacio M. Llorente – European Alliance for Industrial Data, Edge and Cloud (download roadmap)
- Juncal Alonso – SW FORUM (download roadmap)
- Ovidiu Vermesan – AIOTI SRIA (download roadmap)
- Andreas Metzger – NESSI (download roadmap)
- Koen De Bosschere – HiPEAC (download roadmap)
- Clara Pezuela – FIWARE Foundation (download roadmap)
- Paolo Azzoni – INSIDE (download roadmap)
(8 min each)
- Q&A session (30 min)
16:00 – 17:00 – European Commission Wrap-up and key messages (European Commission: Manuel Mateo Goyet – Deputy head of unit of Cloud and Software; Rolf Riemenschneider – Head of Sector IoT) (slides here)
17:00 Closing of the Event
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