The scope for the action would be the following:

• Researching and prototyping at scale end-to-end telco edge cloud integrated infrastructures and platforms, bringing together players from different segments of the connectivity value chain and beyond, such as operators, system integrators, network/cloud/edge suppliers, experts on AI and (wireless) communication, experts on testing and validation of network technologies and services, IoT platform providers et al.
• Developing open orchestration platforms across the telco edge cloud continuum, to support unlocking the transformative value of AI for European businesses and driving business growth in multiple industries strategic for Europe and associated countries.
• Integrating AI solutions for optimising the orchestration of the different resources to be managed by the pilot actions, such as bandwidth, spectrum, computing, hardware, other user requirements.
• Investigation, testing, validation and demonstration of solutions and prototypes of the simultaneous use of integrated devices, edge and cloud computing and communication resources in operational environments (including both public networks and large private networks), ensuring high level of security and privacy, energy efficiency, transparency and control of the ecological footprint.
• Investigation, testing, validation and demonstration of integration of available infrastructures as cloud-edge continuum with distributed systems such as blockchain infrastructure and services, data spaces and seamless and comprehensive AI systems in the process of creation of decentralised digital infrastructure network, including the compliance with applicable EU regulations.
• Exploration of novel approaches for cybersecurity by design and sustainability in advanced communication infrastructure.

With radical changes triggered by GenAI, as well as AI applications penetrating more and more industrial domains, demands for low latency are looming. The pilot should have to tackle the network evolution complementing the cloud with progress towards the edge, as well as needing reliability from the mobile networks.

Key aspects to be researched, validated and demonstrated by the 3C Network end-to-end infrastructures include:

• AI-enabled orchestration and quality assurance tools, algorithms and techniques which cater for hybrid multi-cloud technologies.
• Enablers for multi-level (networks, edge, cloud, and services) federation management and interoperability.
• Tools and mechanisms that facilitate the standardised exposure of network functions.
• Enablement of Edge-as-a-Service approaches that effectively integrate cloud computing’s multi-tenancy and resource sharing concepts into access networks.
• Security and Compliance mechanisms targeted for telco edge cloud.
• Tools for guaranteed end-to-end QoS and QoE across heterogeneous network, cloud and edge infrastructures.
• Mechanisms to exploit specialised hardware and accelerators to address the strict the requirements (e.g. latency, energy efficiency) of virtualised network functions.
• Investigation on the trade-offs associated to Edge nodes density and placement required in telco edge cloud deployments to achieve the target latency rates.
• Lightweight virtualisation and cloud-native approaches for virtualised network functions.
• Novel approaches to handle user mobility to ensure edge service continuity and quality of service.
• Privacy preserving record linkage on individual citizen level and device-related level to foster meaningful linkage of data for secondary usage.