Earlier this month, the COGNIT Team participated in an exciting event organised in Brussels by the EUCloudEdgeIoT initiative and the European Commission: Concertation and Consultation on Computing Continuum: From Cloud to Edge to IoT. Over the course of this 2-day-long event, a total of 44 different EU projects related to cloud, edge, and IoT showcased their ongoing research and innovation in this field through posters and oral presentations—like the one we delivered 🤓 We are very grateful to the organisers for creating this opportunity to meet other colleagues and partners involved in projects that are relevant to COGNIT, and also to everyone else who contributed to making this a great event!

1️⃣ The focus of the first day was on increasing collaboration between ongoing EU projects in the cloud-edge-IoT area. We presented COGNIT as part of the Cognitive Cloud projects after an interesting opening speech in which the European Commission outlined the central role of cloud, edge, and IoT in its digital strategy. Before lunch, the six Task Forces of the EUCloudEdgeIoT initiative were introduced—obviously, we will be contributing to several of them, with a special emphasis on the ones about Open Source and Architecture. After that, the extended lunch break included a tour of the projects and their posters, as well as the networking lunch itself.

The first day ended with a series of three panels (with open Q&A) discussing the way forward with respect to three key topics: resource orchestration and adaptation in the continuum; software models, tools, and processes for the continuum; and lastly, federated architectures for distributed intelligence. In conclusion, it was really interesting to meet the other projects and hear their different ideas and approaches. It was clear that the new projects can learn a lot from the previous ones, and that there is plenty of room for collaboration, especially around the development of European open source technologies. This is why COGNIT has organised a panel on Building a Cognitive Cloud-Edge Continuum for Next-Generation Data Processing Applications with other relevant EU research and innovation projects at the upcoming Data Week 2023 (Luleå, 13-15 June) 🗓️

2️⃣ The second day focused on the longer-term perspective, namely the 2025-2027 work programme for Horizon Europe, and other research roadmaps and priorities for the future. It was organised as an open consultation where selected Expressions of Interest were presented to inspire the research agenda in coming years. It was great to see some new faces on the second day, as a testament to the widespread interest in the cloud-edge-IoT area—32 different organisations that had submitted their proposals in advance, were given the opportunity to present their future vision and research challenges for the cloud-edge-IoT continuum. The day concluded with further presentations and discussions on future research priorities, led by representatives from various industry associations, and a summary by the European Commission.

So, as you can see, it was a great experience and a unique opportunity for us to confirm that topics that are central to the COGNIT project—including the use of Artificial Intelligence for optimising edge clouds, open source innovation, cybersecurity, and sustainability—popped up many times throughout the event as strategic priorities, and are gradually gaining increased awareness and traction among the EU research and innovation ecosystem thanks to the strong support from the European Commission! 👏

🇪🇺 This work has been funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation program through Grant Agreement SovereignEdge.Cognit – 101092711.