The 3C4AI project will deliver an integrated, standards-driven platform to enable trustworthy, efficient deployment and operation of distributed AI services across the cloud–edge–HPC continuum. Its objectives are to (1) provide a unified orchestration layer for multi-domain AI workload lifecycle management, (2) enable federated multi-operator service orchestration via standard East–West APIs, (3) deploy cognitive automation engines for real-time multi-objective optimisation, (4) implement a distributed data orchestration framework with a federated data catalog and policy-compliant sharing, (5) offer GenAI-based intent management to translate business intents into executable service plans, (6) expose a software-defined hardware abstraction layer for hardware-aware placement, (7) establish decentralized trust and governance using a secure integration fabric and smart contracts, and (8) supply validated AI service blueprints and performance models for rapid, predictable uptake.

These objectives will be achieved by combining modular open interfaces, model-driven automation, federated data governance, hardware-aware runtimes, and cross-domain pilots with industrial and public-sector operators to validate scalability, SLA, energy and trust metrics. A rigorous evaluation and benchmarking program will quantify impact on interoperability, operational cost, latency and compliance.

3C4AI directly responds to the HORIZON-CL4-2025-04-DATA-02 call by advancing interoperable, secure and trustworthy data and service orchestration mechanisms that enable cross-operator AI services and sovereign data flows in line with the work programme goals.

The EURO-3C project realizes the 3CN vision by developing and demonstrating the first large-scale federated, open, and sovereign European infrastructure pilot for supplying market-ready, interoperable and converged Telco-Edge-Cloud services, towards strengthening the European digital market, and addressing societal, techno-economic and vertical-specific demands.

To implement this vision, EURO-3C addresses four critical challenges:

Challenge 1: Federating heterogeneous infrastructures. Integrating Telco, Cloud, Edge and AI infrastructures requires overcoming technical complexity in orchestration, interoperability and performance. EURO-3C will federate distributed resources and commercial service lines from major EU Telco and Cloud providers into a comprehensive multi-vendor infrastructure (the EURO-3C Pilot). In this infrastructure, Telco-Edge-Cloud platforms (the EURO-3C Platforms) will offer a sovereign unified service catalogue, enabling interoperability and openness across providers.

Challenge 2: Meeting next-generation demands. Vertical industries and AI workloads require unprecedented levels of connectivity (low latency, high throughput), storage and computing power, distributed all the way to the far edge. EURO-3C will demonstrate how such infrastructure can scale to meet these demands, co-designed with stakeholders from key sectors such as Automotive, Transport, Energy, and Public Protection Disaster Relief (PPDR).

Challenge 3: Ensuring trust, security, and resilience. Federated Telco-Edge-Cloud environments must guarantee secure and trusted data exchange across domains. EURO-3C embeds security by design and Zero Trust principles, with interoperable mechanisms that protect cross-domain interactions and EU sovereignty over critical technologies.

Challenge 4: Building a sustainable and compliant ecosystem. For Telco-Edge-Cloud services to scale across Europe, they must operate within fragmented markets and diverse regulatory environments. EURO-3C will ensure that new business models and layered services are not only interoperable and sustainable but also fully compliant with EU and national legislation, laying the foundation for a trusted and competitive European digital ecosystem.

FORTRESS develops quantum-resistant secure boot mechanisms for critical national infrastructure, combining novel hardware architectures with post-quantum cryptography in operational demonstrators.

It aims to address challenges of modern cybersecurity by developing a scalable and efficient hybrid secure boot architecture. It will design a flexible Root of Trust that integrates both traditional and post-quantum algorithms, while exploring trade-offs between security, performance, and cost. The project will focus on hardware-software co-design principles, enabling diverse platforms – embedded systems, edge devices, and Critical National Infrastructure – to transition to quantum-resistant architectures seamlessly. Additionally, the project will engage industry stakeholders to align with regulatory and standardisation efforts, ensuring practical deployment and maximum impact. By developing a critical building block for a wide range of applications, FORTRESS will safeguard Europe’s digital infrastructure, fostering resilience and leadership in the post-quantum era.

The FORTRESS (Post-Quantum/Traditional Hybrid Cryptographic Secure Boot) project brings together six European partners; Eurescom (coordinator), PQShield, CyberHive, Codasip, eShard, and Universität der Bundeswehr München, to address the imminent threat quantum computers pose to RSA/ECC-based secure boot processes that underpin modern cybersecurity.

The 6G-SANDBOX project brings a complete and modular facility for the European experimentation ecosystem (inline and under the directions set by SNS JU), which is expected to support for the next decade technology and research validation processes needed in the pathway towards 6G. The target is at technologies and research advances, that span over the entire service provisioning chain, and refer to user/data, control and management planes. In this direction, 6GSANDBOX introduces the concept of Trial Networks, which refers to fully configurable, manageable and controlled end-to-end networks, composed of both digital and physical nodes. The 6G-SANDBOX Trial Networks incorporate infrastructures distributed in EU (namely in Malaga, Athens, Berlin and Oulu) and offer to third parties (including experimenters from open calls) automated experimentation capabilities through a rich and extensible toolbox. Meant to create tangible and long-term impact, the 6G KPIs and KVIs that will be quantified with the facility, will be released to any interested party; while the set of developments and APIs that will be produced, will feed an open repository as an initial step to move the contributions and the lessons learned beyond the project boarders and define a European 6G library.

CENTRIC proposes to leverage Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques through a top-down, modular approach to wireless connectivity that puts the users’ communication needs and environmental constraints at the center of the network stack design. It all starts with the users’ objectives and application-specific requirements. Then, AI techniques are used to create and customize tailor-made waveforms, transceivers, signaling, protocols and RRM procedures to support these requirements. This is the user-centric AI Air Interface (AI-AI) that CENTRIC will enable. To guarantee that CENTRIC’s AI-AI can be implemented in practice, we will also explore and develop innovative hardware computing substrates with realistic and AI-AI-compatible energy-efficiency properties. This includes novel electronics such as neuromorphic computing and mixed analog-digital platforms. CENTRIC will make this possible by advancing theory, algorithms, hardware co-design, and training and monitoring environments based on digital twins. We will focus on providing the desired quality of experience (QoE) to a given user, or type of users, while optimizing spectrum usage, minimizing energy consumption and guaranteeing EMF compliance. The results of CENTRIC will be validated and demonstrated in laboratory prototypes and its breakthroughs will enable future 6G use-cases, such as self-driving vehicles, the internet of nano bio-things, or multi-sensory holographic communications.

Indo-Pacific European Hub for Digital Partnerships (INPACE) is a Coordination and Support Action Project funded by the European Commission’s Horizon Europe Programme starting January 2024 and running until June 2027.

The mission of the INPACE project is to translate these high-level partnerships into concrete outcomes and tangible collaborations. By tackling joint priorities from the EU and its strategic Asian partners, the INPACE project aims to create a more inclusive, sustainable, and prosperous digital future for both regions.

Powered by a consortium of 21 European and Asian partners, the project establishes a multi-stakeholder Hub for collaboration in digital technologies between Europe and the Indo-Pacific region and fosters long-term cooperation in key digital technologies by bringing together experts and stakeholders from both regions.

EURESCOM will lead cluster 5 on Digital Technologies – Future Networks, as well as act as a main proxy for the Japan experts due to our engagement in previous collaboration activities, such as the ESA-NICT collaboration.

The OPTI-6G project develops a photonic near infrared (IR) cell-free 5G network, which does not suffer from interference because of the propagation characteristics of electro-magnetic waves in this part of the spectrum and provides universal broadband coverage within buildings from pervasively located optical wireless communication (OWC) access points.

The benefits of applying cell-free near IR networks in buildings are (1) multi-connectivity can be configured with cell-free network thereby improving link quality and reliability; (2) there is no longer the need for building owners to subdivide their non-public mobile in-building network into cellular areas; (3) building owners no longer need to seek to acquire frequency licence or ensure alignment with spectrum usage in the area since the system operates at the optical unlicensed bands; (4) interference between inside and outside access is managed by an artificial intelligence (AI) based distributed scheduler; (5) position and orientation of end user equipment can be measured very accurately.

OPTI-6G brings together a select multi-disciplinary team of research institutions and industries in a collaborative project to develop and demonstrate this vision. OPTI-6G will (i) Develop and showcase a proof of concept demonstrator at OLEDCOMM and RunEL; (ii) Verify position and orientation measurement precision improvement of end user equipment at University of Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines and at Brunel University London.

 

PAROMA-MED will develop, validate and evaluate a platform – based hybrid-cloud delivery framework for privacy and security- assured services and applications in federative cross-border environments. To this purpose, the project will develop new architectures, technologies, tools and services to support:

– automatic attestation of federation partners

– privacy- and security – by-design, integrating standard compliance and performance / QoS requirements into a policy framework
– consumers with their rights for opt-in / opt-out consent, portability and right to be forgotten requests, as well as transparency in access to their private-data.
– federative Identity and Access Management, based on Zero Trust principles, continuous risk assessment and on confidentiality, integrity and authenticity insurance
– privacy-preserving and trusted data – storage and – processing in federative environments
– flexible and secure access over the Internet to private-data and service resources
– AI / ML by-design, integrating platform services to be used by application developers for data-intensive applications
– Zero Touch deployment and automatic life-cycle management of services and applications
– managed Privacy and Security operations for automated policy enforcement and cyberthreat detection and mitigation

Efficiency and scalability will be ensured by the implementation of cloud-native solutions, while future adoption and further development is insured by open-source implementations. The project will validate and evaluate the PAROMA-MED framework by developing of a comprehensive Use Case with real users in the Healthcare sector. The project will create impact on the application- creation and delivery ecosystem (including standardization and legal stakeholders), on society and environment and manage the impact via dedicated activities and communication channels.

SUSTAIN-6G, as a Lighthouse Project within the European Smart Networks and Services Joint Undertaking (SNS JU), is focused on promoting holistic sustainability in 6G systems by addressing six key objectives. The project aims to understand the 6G technology landscape, create an inventory of state-of-the-art approaches and technologies, and identify sustainability needs and indicators.

It seeks to define and assess sustainability goals, enhance the integration of 6G with vertical use cases (UCs) to reduce environmental impact and develop a Sustainability Management Plan (SMP) for sustainable network operations. Additionally, the project will validate and demonstrate the sustainability of 6G technologies and deliver guidelines and a strategic roadmap for 6G development.

The SNS CO-OP project is devoted to supporting and facilitating the activities of the SNS Initiative under the Smart Networks and Services Joint Undertaking (SNS JU).

The SNS CO-OP project will achieve this by orchestrating and organising strategic activities, in collaboration with the SNS JU Office and the 6G Industry Association, to capture and promote the European Industry view on 6G, the achievements of the 6G SNS initiative and projects, and to promote the ambitions of the SNS JU.

The SNS CO-OP project will build on the strengths and assets of the platforms and communities, established through the SNS OPS and SNS ICE work, to stimulate and align complementary activities across the wider community of 6G SNS stakeholders. SNS Co-Op will also ensure the long-term continuity of the SNS facilities for subsequent phases of the SNS JU. In addition, the SNS CO-OP project will provide support for the EUCNC & 6G Summit events in 2025 and 2026 building on the 6GStart achievements and experience.