Demand-side 3C pilot demonstrators on converged Telco Edge Cloud Infrastructure (IA)

Developing an agile and secure single market for data and trustworthy AI services is central to Europe’s digital sovereignty and competitiveness. The convergence of the Telco-Edge-Cloud continuum (3C) with open orchestration platforms will unlock the transformative potential of AI across strategic sectors, from mobility and energy to health and manufacturing, fostering new services and business models. Building a sovereign Open Internet Stack, rooted in open-source, interoperable and standard-based solutions, will reinforce trust, resilience and innovation, while ensuring Europe retains control over critical digital infrastructures. At the same time, decentralised and federated approaches to AI data processing, combined with breakthroughs in sustainable data centres, will help overcome Europe’s compute bottlenecks and dependencies, and reduce the environmental footprint of AI. By aligning with the Data Union Strategy and Common European Data Spaces, these efforts will deliver secure, compliant and adaptive data-sharing frameworks that empower citizens, businesses and administrations. Together, they will strengthen Europe’s ability to innovate, scale and lead globally in data and AI, anchoring digital sovereignty in line with EU values and strategic interests.

Legal entities established in China are not eligible to participate in both Research and Innovation Actions (RIAs) and Innovation Actions (IAs) falling under this destination. For additional information please see “Restrictions on the participation of legal entities established in China” found in General Annex B of the General Annexes.

Expected Outcome:

• Demand-side driven validation of open orchestration platforms across the telco-cloud edge continuum unlocking notably the transformative value of AI for European businesses, driving business growth in multiple industries strategic for Europe.
• Enabling the path towards sustainability and competitiveness of key vertical sectors in the EU, exploiting the innovative features of 3C/ telco-edge-cloud, including network features such as API (Application Program Interface) aggregation, slicing, automation, latency, security, ISAC (Integrated Sensing and Communication), reconfigurability, to significantly improve quality of service, resilience, sustainability and other performance parameters of digital communications.
• The demand pilots will have a clear sector relevance, with one pilot addressing the future of smart mobility including the automotive sector.
• A vibrant ecosystem around 3C/telco-edge-cloud infrastructure, targeting SMEs and start-ups to develop innovative services and new business models validation and marketplace exploitation strategies, as well as paths to commercialization or replicability.

Scope:

The term “Connected, Collaborative, Computing (3C) Network” refers to a telco-edge-cloud, secure multi-provider and multi-technology, communication system that hosts network functions and workloads for and beyond connectivity (e.g. 6G, AI Storage/Compute, networking, Security ISAC , and any other application or capability) as a service (aaS). Key features of the 3C/ telco-edge-cloud network include programmability, fast service creation, security and privacy, mobility, and service continuity across inter-domain deployments. 3C/ telco-edge-cloud networks enable innovative use cases for an EU Digital Market that integrate communication, collaboration and computing capabilities in competitive and sustainable business models that will reinforce EU competitiveness and contribute to digital sovereignty, in particular through the use of Open Internet Stack components. Resulting solutions should be available for use in the public sector (for instance for justice systems).

The 3C Network large-scale pilot funded under topic HORIZON-CL4-2025-03-DATA-08: Large-scale pilots for supply end-to-end infrastructures integrating device, network computing and communication capabilities for Telco Edge Cloud deployments, as a basis for Connected Collaborative Computing Networks (3C networks) (RIA) is setting up end-to-end integrated infrastructures and platforms, bringing together players from different segments of the connectivity and compute value chain and beyond. The main target is to research and validate the integration of device, network, cloud and edge computing, and communication capabilities for telco edge cloud deployments to realize a ubiquitous mesh of computing and communication resources. As a main outcome the supply side pilot establishes an open orchestration platform across the telco-cloud-edge continuum, exploits the transformative value of AI and builds on the integration of solutions developed by the Open Euro Stack.

Demand- side pilot demonstrators called in this topic will build on the above supply side large-scale pilot and integrate future domain-specific applications and services with an emerging European 3Cs/ telco-edge-cloud infrastructure, leveraging different network features. Key features will include security and privacy solutions offering resistance to emerging quantum threats (such as via post-quantum cryptography), mobility, and service continuity across inter-domain and multi-cloud deployments and ecosystems.

Up to two pilot demonstrators on below listed specific verticals are expected.

• One pilot demonstrator focusing on Mobility covering specific areas of transport, logistics and the Automotive industry. The pilot should support the strategy as developed by the Connected and Autonomous Vehicle Alliance identified in the Automotive Action plan, in particular Pillars 3 (AI models) and 5 (Large-scale testing), which will be launched in 2025.
• One pilot demonstrator focusing on another vertical sector such as energy, smart communities, industrial virtual worlds, health, agrifood or manufacturing.

They would be driven by a consortium including partners both from the demand (user) and infrastructure supply side. The pilot demonstrators should take advantage of open application interfaces, explore the possibilities of AI, “virtual worlds”, and other innovative technologies for practical implementation in the referred vertical domains. They should leverage combined investments in network infrastructure, computing and connectivity infrastructure as an enabler for more extensive set of digital innovation, with cognitive cloud computing and swarm intelligence, generative AI and LLM, as well as on-boarding of XR/AR technologies, being ranked most important.

Proposals are expected to detail a robust data governance model for the data generated and processed within the pilots. This model should address data sovereignty, interoperability with Common European Data Spaces, and alignment with principles from initiatives like Gaia-X. It should outline clear mechanisms for secure and compliant data sharing between the demand-side (users) and supply-side (infrastructure providers), establishing the trust necessary for a functional data economy on top of the 3C infrastructure.

Pilot demonstrators should demonstrate the evolution from virtualised and cloud-native network functions towards automated network operations enabling agile and green IoT-edge computing solutions and decentralised intelligence. They should also demonstrate benefits for infrastructure providers to operate networks more efficiently and move beyond traditional connectivity-service models to higher value-added services.

Demonstrations will respond to the ever more demanding processing power of AI through integration on-device level and changes triggered by GenAI affecting global communication infrastructures. Orchestration of workloads across the telco-cloud-edge continuum from distributed sensors and actuators to the edge and cloud is a crucial part of innovation as AI becomes more resource-intensive.

The pilot demonstrators should take into consideration the recommendations on user requirements from the advisory group of end users, as well as liaise with the collaboration and support action (CSA) funded under WP25 to bridge between the 3C/ telco-edge-cloud supply pilot funded under WP25 and the demand pilots funded under WP26-27.

The pilots should exploit in particular open APIs and open-source components as developed by the supply side pilot, e.g. including the use of capabilities to implement specific communication management services (e.g. Open RAN security, RIC VNF…), up-take of existing standards and relevant open-source projects (e.g., Sylva, ANUKET, Nephio, CAMARA, etc.).

The pilot demonstrators should include testing, validation and demonstration of prototypes of agile virtualised network functions combined with ubiquitous mesh of integrated devices, computing and communication resources in operational environments, ensuring security and privacy, protection also in the face of emerging quantum threats, energy efficiency, transparency and control of the ecological footprint, as well as sustainable artificial intelligence services.

The pilot demonstrators are expected to re-use as far as possible existing open-source frameworks, i.e. open-source software governed by communities of contributors, that will provide key technology components for the operation of the 3C/ telco-edge-cloud supply-side large scale pilot. These open-source frameworks should be made available to the Open Internet Stack Support for Scale.

The proposals should ensure a high degree of participation of stakeholders from the relevant vertical sectors, with a particular attention to the involvement of SMEs, scale-ups and start-ups.

The pilots should establish a high degree of relations and collaborate with complementary EU funded research activities, like the Smart Networks and Systems Joint Undertaking (SNS JU) projects, the “Empowering AI across the continuum” and the “Sovereign edge/cloud infrastructure” R&I areas, the PPP virtual worlds, CCAM partnership as well as support of SW-defined vehicle initiative under the Chips JU.

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