Accelerating the digital transformation in Europe

Public event of CELTIC flagship project AI-NET

The public event of AI-NET in Berlin on
28 April 2022 presented the first-year results of the CELTIC flagship project. In addition, the half-day event hosted by Fraunhofer HHI provided the opportunity to discuss topics of strategic relevance related to the work of ­AI-NET.

The event, moderated by CELTIC-NEXT Chairman David Kennedy from Eurescom, started with high-level presentations by representatives of the four public authorities funding the project.


The attentive audience on site – A larger number of participants attended remotely

Public authorities stress digital ­sovereignty

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Ina Schieferdecker, Director-General for Research for Digitalization and Innovation at the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, set the tone, when she explained the relevance of AI-NET: “AI-NET is an important step for Germany and Europe towards resilient and secure network infrastructures for technological sovereignty.” She highlighted that a peaceful Europe needs to be in the driving seat of the digital transformation as progressed by AI-NET. She put this in the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the COVID-19 pandemic and their impact on the economic and technological sovereignty of Europe.


Prof. Dr.-Ing. Ina Schieferdecker from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research

Andreas Aurelius, Head of ICT department at Swedish innovation agency Vinnova, stressed the importance of resilient societies enabled by resilient digital infrastructures in Europe. He particularly highlighted AI-NET’s contribution to enabling resilient networks infrastructures across Europe by making them more secure and autonomous – characteristics he considers critical for our future society and economy.

In the same vein, Heikki Uusi-Honko, Head of International Networks at Business Finland, underlined the high relevance of AI-NET, as industrial sovereignty is more topical now than ever. He added that in order to get innovations fast to the market, it requires a native digital mindset, which AI-NET has demonstrated. He highlighted the expected impact for Europe and its fast step change in the digital transformation.

Christian Dubarry, Head of European Affairs at Bpifrance, explained how France considers cloud computing as a future champion of sovereignty, and expects a doubling of the number of companies for trusted cloud computing already by 2025. He said that AI-NET ANTILLAS could contribute to these goals with its concept of edge and fog infrastructure.

All four public authority representatives acknowledged the intermediate results of the three AI-NET sub-projects.

Presentation of project results

After a demonstration tour of selected results achieved by AI-NET, the event continued with presentations of AI-NET and its sub-projects. Coordinator Achim Autenrieth, Director Advanced Technology at ADVA, started by providing an overview on AI-NET as a whole before handing over to the leaders of the three sub-projects. Azimeh Sefidcon, Research Area director for Cloud at Ericsson, presented AI-NET-ANIARA and its achievements to date. AI-NET-PROTECT was presented by Jörg-Peter Elbers, Senior VP Advanced Technology at ADVA. And finally Olivier Audouin, Director of external affairs at Nokia, gave an overview on AI-NET-ANTILLAS and its results.


Huge interest in the AI-NET results at the demo tour

Panel discussion on digital sovereignty

The final highlight of the event was a panel discussion on the geopolitical, economic and technological challenges Europe is facing on its way digital sovereignty. The six panel participants provided a diversity of industry views on the subject. Panel participants included Johan Sandell, CTO of Waystream, Christoph Glingener, CTO of ADVA, Timo Lehnigk-Emden, CTO of Creonic, Olivier Winzenried, CEO of WIBU systems, Jim Dowling, CEO of Logical Clocks, and Jonathan Rivalan, R&D Director of SMILE.

The lively discussion, moderated by CELTIC-NEXT Chairman David Kennedy, identified numerous challenges that need to be addressed, from supply-chain risks to critical dependencies in the areas of key technologies and raw materials required for Europe’s digital infrastructure. The panel participants and the audience joining the discussion could not converge on the best path to achieving digital sovereignty, but achieved a higher level of insight on the challenges to be tackled.


Lively panel discussion on digital sovereignty (sitting, from left): Timo Lehnigk-Emden, CTO of Creonic, Jim Dowling, CEO of Logical Clocks, Olivier Winzenried, CEO of WIBU systems, Jonathan Rivalan, R&D Director of SMILE, Johan Sandell, CTO of Waystream, Christoph Glingener, CTO of ADVA, and moderator David Kennedy (standing)

About AI-NET

CELTIC flagship project AI-NET was officially launched on 1st June 2021. AI-NET aims at ‘Accelerating Digital Transformation in Europe with Intelligent Network Automation’. The project is addressing the challenge that the current centralised cloud infrastructure is not adequate for serving the requirements of the digital transformation in Europe. AI-NET is built on the premise that three technologies need to be combined to shape a new secure service and application platform: 5G/6G, edge-centric computing, and artificial intelligence.

The main goal of the AI-NET project is to provide enablers and solutions for high-performance services deployed and operated at the network edge. AI-NET is using artificial intelligence for complementing traditional optimisation algorithms, in order to manage vastly increased network complexity.

› Further information

AI-NET project website – https://ai-net.tech

Back to the Future—A 21-Year Journey of Collaborative Innovation

David Kennedy
CELTIC-NEXT Chair Person

21 years of Innovation through ­collaboration

21 years in the life of any initiative is significant achievement as it shows that the goals, methods and achievements of the community are maintaining relevance and value for the community.

As a EUREKA cluster, the CELTIC community held their first call for projects in 2003, resulting in selection of 15 projects based on quality and relevance and were supported by the national authorities and launched.

Whilst, the current statistics show that, there have been over 175 CELTIC projects which have generated at least 650 patents and 1500 products and services. Besides, this work resulted in almost 1500 higher level degrees (PhD & MSc) and stimulated more than 4500 scientific publications. This is the power of Collaborative Innovation.

For 21 years the CELTIC-NEXT process has continued to evolve to meet the ever-changing research requirements of the ICT industries, related academics and vertical sector organisations and, more critically, the national interests of the EUREKA Member States. In fact, what the CELTIC-NEXT EUREKA community has learnt over the years is that this marriage of the industry needs with the priorities of national interest can achieve a high return on investment for the supporting parties. This Win-Win type of collaboration presents a sustainable model.

Innovative Collaboration

However, we cannot assume things will always be the same. As we speak, new challenges in the way we prepare and do collaborative innovation have arisen in more recent times. Some involve the politics of the moment, having faster programs, and others raise security and sovereignty issues. Finding fair and practical ways to address such issues will test the industry players and the national authorities’ joint ability to always find the common ground of mutual interest. But having recently participated in exercises where the interested parties sat down around a table to discuss what improvements we can make to increase the value and effectiveness of the EUREKA Cluster programs, I have no doubt solutions can be found. Authorities and Industry have a shared ambition to make the clusters programs better, more relevant and easier to operate for the future. This willingness to evolve innovatively on how we do collaborative innovation is the key to future success for all.

 

The future vision of CELTIC NEXT

If we look forward in even the next 10 years, we can expect that the communications infrastructure will have become even more pervasive, people will have ceased to notice how they are connected but they will be quite confident that the connectivity of the required quality will always be there when they need it. Similarly, our devices – from our phones to our cars – will have capabilities not just to serve our needs but to anticipate our future needs and make sure the data and communications services are there for us. Industry will be transformed with fully digitised systems modelling and managing just about every industrial process.

Behind all of these visions will be a set of people who will work with their international peers in a collaborative way to advance the technologies, improve the social sciences and ensure a sustainable future for all. CELTIC-NEXT will work on enabling this vision.

Looking forward to the next 21 years !!


© Canva

What’s next for CELTIC-NEXT

David Kennedy
CELTIC-NEXT Chair Person

CELTIC-NEXT: Looking Back

It is said that there are periods in history where, if you jump 50 years, the world is recognizable. But there are other periods of rapid development where such a jump brings you to an unrecognisable new world. The first half of the 20th Century would be an example of the latter as at the turn of the century the world was still based on horse transport but by the middle of the 20th Century cars, trains and planes had made the world small and accessible to all.

For Telecommunications we have seen such a generational change in the first 20 years of the 21st Century. In fact, the pace of change from the late 1990s to today has seen the communications infrastructure change and evolve so rapidly that it has changed the behaviour of society as a whole.

As the new technologies advance, they reach a level where they become “adequate”. What I mean by this is that it became sufficient for all normal needs to the point that you, as a user, no longer expects or demands evolutions. You don’t ask any more if you PC processor is fast enough – they all are fast. We are rapidly entering the era where you don’t worry about your data connection any more as it is fast enough. So where do we go from here?

CELTIC-NEXT: Looking Forward

There is a core challenge in the ICT domain that each evolution of the network infrastructure has prompted a complete infrastructure renewal. The fixed network had to be changed for a mobile network and then, in subsequent generations, all physical network elements had to be replaced with newer faster devices. No other infrastructure industry has had such a challenge. For example, the electricity network to your house has probably never been renewed. In the ICT sector growth has been explosive as people now have a communication device for every family member (probably including the dog) and most family members now have several communicating devices.

This means that Telcos must get a good return on investment on each new technology within a very short time in order to be able financially implement the next generation. To progress from here the ICT industry now has to migrate to more generic hardware that can provide many of the interesting evolutions through updating software. Network infrastructures must have interfaces that allow elements to be changed without changing the whole system. At the same time the whole ICT domain must address the new requirements that include important issues like: sustainability, renewability, inherent societal considerations and, more recently, sovereignty.

CELTIC-NEXT: The future opportunities

Two streams of innovation are essential for the future: the first is the revolution – where new services and devices that enhance our live must be invented and brought to life; and the second is evolution – where every aspect of how we do things must be overhauled to be done more efficiently, using less energy and resources, and for lower costs.

ICT not only must facilitate this for its own industry but also it is the facilitator for other sectors. The revolution of millions of sensors – the Internet of Things (IoT), combined with the explosion of Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems means we now should have all the data and the intelligence to learn how to improve everything.

The great opportunities for ICT now include:

  • To use our imagination and inventiveness to make our systems simpler, lighter, and more energy efficient. AI can help here.
  • To make the lifecycles more sustainable – reprogrammable equipment means longer working lives and less resources, and recycling helps everyone.
  • To help reduce the digital divide and promote better education and information. Again, AI can help.
  • To clean up the global information pool and make it safe. We all need information we can trust. Another opportunity for clever AI tools?
  • On a personal level, we need assistance to enjoy the end-to-end communications, so long the backbone of CELTIC-NEXT projects, so let’s invent a new family of cutting-edge services devoted to looking after the interests of the individual.

These challenges are ideal for the Eureka Clusters Programme, as the combination of national interest and early industry investment ensures the wellbeing of both society at large and the industry sectors is considered.

ICT is a tool for economic growth and development. The dramatic evolution of the ICT networks now mean that it generates lots of new opportunities and can change the way our civil society functions. We must now join forces within the CELTIC-NEXT cluster to address these challenges and take advantage of the exciting opportunities to protect, preserve and enhance all the best and beautiful parts of our societies and, at the same time, to invent and develop new, better, more sustainable, solutions to our existing problems.

The exciting evolving ICT sector can be used as a stimulus to stop the spread of negative trends and lead the way towards sustainable development on all levels. CELTIC-NEXT is looking forward to a new generation of projects inventing new networks and services that facilitate a better future for all.

The new improved Eureka Clusters Programme

David Kennedy
CELTIC-NEXT Chair Person

The Eureka Clusters Programme (ECP) is coming out of a restructuring phase where there was a lot of pressure on the Clusters themselves to become more flexible and responsive, against a promise of more investment and more support for the industry and community research and collaboration needs. At this point it is useful to see how we are progressing and if we are achieving our goals.

From the Clusters side we have shown great flexibility and adaptability by running joint thematic calls for topics that were identified as common interest. However, despite this the major expectations the Clusters had from the renewal have not emerged yet. We expected that the joint calls would be new topics that would generate new budgets and increase the investment overall in the Cluster activities, but to date, we have not seen this in reality. In fact, many Eureka member public authorities admit they are funding the new joint calls from the existing Cluster budgets with no additional funding being generated.

The problem here is that we are then, in effect, just increasing the number of calls to be managed and therefore the number of reviews, assessments, funding decisions, etc., for what is effectively the same size programme. Clearly it is not a long-term strategy to keep increasing the costs of operation without seeing any increase in the volume and value of the programme. So, we do need to do a progress assessment on the New ECP model and work out which parts are working and which parts need more attention.

From the Clusters perspective, one part that has not taken off is the expected high-level meetings between industry representatives and national authorities. It was foreseen that we could have strategic discussions that would lead to common ideas on the priorities and therefore a mutual commitment of both public authorities and industry to invest in the identified priorities of the moment. We are just not there yet. We need to get this dialogue going to stimulate the anticipated increases in investments.

Bigger is better

The other point of concern is that we have an increasing trend for smaller project proposals coming from the community. We need to see why this is happening and how can we motivate more substantial actions. One possible cause is that proposers are being conditioned by warnings of limited funding opportunities – so they ask for less, so the project ambition is reduced, so the public authorities are not impressed by the limited proposals, and we are in a downward cycle. Another suggestion is that proposals are shrinking, because resources are limited. However, this is only true if the proposals are moving away from the core needs of the industry. Industry players are simple in this regard in that they decide what they need to do for their future business and, if the project proposal is in line with their business goals, then they commit the necessary resources. But maybe we are coming back to the missing strategic discussion where the business needs and the national interests need to be aligned.

The Cluster commitment to flexibility has been proven by the joint calls, but this has introduced two concerns: the first is that the public authorities seem to have difficulties being equally flexible – it was really unfortunate that one public authority refused to support a project in a joint call, as it was proposed through a Cluster they did not support – this challenges the very basis of joint calls; the second concern is that the level of budget commitment to joint calls is such that the issues may be better addressed as recommended themes within the normal bottom-up calls of the Clusters.

The way forward

Whatever way we look at it, there is a clear need to strategically invest from both the national and the industry sides – but it must be done in a coherent way. There are several challenges in the new model that we must progress on, to get the additional value from the programme. It is now emerging that it will be necessary to have multiple national level meetings with the Cluster interests rather than the one common high-level meeting – or maybe both approaches need to run in parallel.

In any case, we must preserve and promote the essence of the extremely efficient and useful Eureka Clusters instrument. This, in essence, is the structure in which the proactive Cluster core groups, as the key industry players of their respective sectors, work in partnership with the Eureka public authorities to stimulate a set of bottom-up project proposals that capture the needs of industry, aligns them with the national interests and develops products and services for the benefit of both society and industry as a whole. The EUREKA Clusters Programme matters.

CELTIC-NEXT Events in a nutshell

Past Events

EuCNC 2022 & 2023

CELTIC-NEXT and its strategic partnering Cluster Xecs held a joint booth at EuCNC 2022 in Grenoble, France, and at EuCNC 2023 in Gothenburg, Sweden. Both events were very good occasions for both Clusters to meet with the European ICT community members and exchange on inter-governmental funding opportunities offered by the Eureka network of countries within and beyond European borders. AINET Flagship was also present to display the excellence of the CELTIC-NEXT projects.


Xavier Priem, CELTIC Office Director and Nadja Rohrbach, Xecs Director

Eureka HLG/HLR Meetings under ­Portugese Chairmanship

Four times per rotating chairmanship, the ­Eureka High Level Group and High-Level Representatives of the Eureka country members meet to check the status of the Eureka Programmes (including the Clusters). CELTIC-NEXT’s Director attended several Portugal led meetings to represent the interests of the CELTIC-NEXT community, discussing funding, alignment of topics and strategies, timelines of national calls, etc. One of the targets of those meetings is to attract new countries of the ­Network to fund CELTIC-NEXT projects. Canada has become a full member of Eureka, Chile as joint member

As an example, the ESA partnership with CELTIC-NEXT and Eureka got signed during the Porto meeting. Also during those meetings the United Kingdom representatives announced their increased support to the Clusters.


Group photo of the Eureka Network meeting in Porto, Portugal

Eureka HLG/HLR Meetings under Turkish Chairmanship

CELTIC-NEXT’s Director attended the Brussels’, Ankara’s and Izmir’s meetings. Both meetings were important for the Clusters and thus for CELTIC-NEXT. At CELTIC-NEXT’s level, very fruitful discussions took place with over 20 countries, including Chile as new country for CELTIC-NEXT but also with Brazil that will be an associated Eureka country starting mid-2024. This reinforces one of the CELTIC-NEXT’ unique selling points: the ability to have cooperative innovation with countries outside of Europe. Actions have been defined with both countries to introduce CELTIC-NEXT to their national eco-systems.


Group photo at the Eureka HLG/HLR Network meeting in Izmir, Türkiye

› Further information

  • https://eurekanetwork.org/about-us/chair/
  • https://www.celticnext.eu/celtic-next-participate-first-eureka-network-meetings-under-the-turkish-chair-22-23-november-2023/

CELTIC-NEXT Proposers’ Brokerage Day in Paris

Due to and during COVID-19 Pandemics, CELTIC-NEXT took the decision to stop all CELTIC-NEXT’s regularly organised physical events such as Proposers’ Brokerage Days and CELTIC-NEXT annual promotional events. Even if COVID-19 is still present, it is now better mastered and physical meetings have rebooted all over the world. Recognising this, CELTIC-NEXT organised its first post-COVID-19 event at “le Hub by BPIfrance” in Paris, with the support of the French Public Authority in Eureka: BPIfrance. Despite the strikes blocking half of our registered attendees, the event was a success, with keynotes from the Industry and from BPIfrance.

› Further information

  • https://www.celticnext.eu/past-proposers-days/


CELTIC-NEXT Proposers’ Brokerage Day at the BPI Le Hub in Paris

Let’s invent together a smarter and safer world

It is more than ever time to invest in ICT

Valérie Blavette
Orange
blavette(at)celticnext.eu

I hope all readers of CELTIC News are well. My feeling is that going through a pandemic changes us and makes us think differently. It makes us understand what is crucial and what is only nice to have. We also learn that we can adapt, do things differently and fast. Not only AI will pave the way for a smarter world, even if for sure AI will play an important role there.

Despite all difficulties, most of us have still been able to telework and communicate thanks to digital tools, telecom networks and the cloud.

AI, telecom and IT tools have proved to be critical assets

First of all we can be proud of our telecom and IT assets. As an example, the dimensioning of networks allowed the unusual traffic peaks during the first weeks of the crisis. Working for the research of a big telecom operator, Orange, I am proud of my colleagues in the operational units and of all the working forces which allowed the continuity of services of the critical infrastructures.

Most importantly, the telecom infrastructures connected the hospitals and the businesses during that strained period. What would have been our daily life during the social distancing measures and home office without the telecom infrastructure? Without the digital applications? Without news from the remote family, talking to friends, allowing grandparents to see the younger ones, exchanging and getting information, making online food shopping? As a mother, I also appreciated that my children could do their lessons online, even if it is not always easy for a ten-year-old boy to organize his daily screen time around math, English and geography instead of using it for Fortnite, FIFA or “The Legend of Zelda”.

When I helped our au pair to get her first online medical teleconsultation from home, I thought of the CELTIC eHealth projects HIPERMED and E3, which created novel solutions for teleconsultation and telesurgery.

Some results from other CELTIC projects have also been very valuable, like VIRTUOSE, which created solutions for multi-party ­video communication and video analysis, area management and security. Or the UNICRINF project, which developed novel solutions for improving emergency communication.

Continuous support by the CELTIC ­Office

At the time I wrote this article, the CELTIC office was busy as always supporting proposers and CELTIC projects at any stage. For running projects online reviews have been organized. A first joint call between the CELTIC and the EUROGIA communities has been organized during the first trimester of this year. On 31st of March the CELTIC office has held a successful AI proposer’s webinar with a large audience – around 200 registered participants from 24 countries, many of them joining from home.

EUREKA Clusters AI call

At a time when the COVID-19 crisis has created more solidarity, more connections, even if we needed to be physically distant, the Clusters CELTIC-NEXT, EUROGIA, ITEA, PENTA and EURIPIDES2 have been cooperating more than ever to define the first EUREKA Clusters AI call.

When defining this first common call, the EUREKA Clusters have learnt a lot on how to streamline processes and make it easier for both applicants and Public Authorities. In particular a single online project submission tool for all participating Clusters has been defined and set up. We proved collectively agile, and I would like to thank the inter-Cluster colleagues for their cooperation in this new adventure.

Conclusion

Going back to the Coronavirus crisis, I hope we will be collectively able to heed all the lessons learned. No doubt our ICT infrastructures, digital tools and the use of AI at different levels have saved many lives since the beginning of the year. Some Asian countries especially reacted very fast, showing us images of what we so far thought was sci-fi. Thanks to Big Data, IA, and global collaboration, the research helped a lot to react as fast as possible to limit the damages caused by the pandemic.

That is why, even if the European and worldwide economy will need some time to recover, I am convinced it is more than ever time to invest in ICT. Research should be as fast as possible, to fight such a pandemic or to invent a smarter, safer world. That is what CELTIC and EUREKA should be after in the coming months.


Photo: © Adobe Stock

Upcoming Events

EuCNC & 6G Summit 2024 in Antwerp, Belgium

The 2024 EuCNC & 6G Summit builds on putting together two successful conferences in the area of telecommunications: EuCNC, in its 33rd edition of a series, supported by the European Commission; the 6G Summit, in its 6th edition, originated from the 6G Flagship programme in Finland, one of the very first in its area. CELTIC-NEXT and Xecs will jointly hold the booth #60.

› Further information

Eureka Clusters Special Session at the GIS 2024 in Istanbul

The Global Innovation Summit 2024 brings together global leaders, decision-makers, companies, and key research organizations from all over the globe to tackle the most pressing challenges of an ever-changing world.

This year’s event is coordinated by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Türkiye (TÜBİTAK). Among the main priorities of the Turkish Chairship towards building bridges for global challenges are: impactful instruments, building a green and digital future, sustainability of Eureka, embrace the Globe.

On 13 June from 13:45-15:00, the Eureka Clusters CELTIC-NEXT, EUROGIA, ITEA, SMART and Xecs will organise the session ‘Turkish companies and Clusters: A mutual synergy’.

This session will enable you to discover and interact with the Eureka Clusters funding instrument, and to learn more about the experiences, benefits and impact for and by (Turkish) companies through participation in Eureka Cluster projects.

› Further information

https://gis-2024.b2match.io/contact

CELTIC 21st Anniversary Celebration & CELTIC-NEXT Exhibition at Berlin 6G Conference 2024 (1st-4th July 2024 at Berlin Congress Centre – BCC)

As already mentioned, on the 2nd of July 2024, CELTIC will celebrate its 21 years of existence on the scene of the international cooperation fostering innovation in the ICT domain and its application verticals. The Celebration’s agenda will be communicated online. High level speakers from BMBF, Eureka and the Industry will share the floor of the Plenary Auditorium and express themselves on CELTIC, its great achievements and their vision of its future.

On the 2nd of July also, in the afternoon session, AINET will hold its Closure Event also in the Plenary space.

CELTIC-NEXT will also hold its exhibition from 1st to 4th of July at BCC. CELTIC-NEXT’s running projects will expose their current achievements sharing the 6 booths dedicated to CELTIC-NEXT. The Office will be present with a booth for providing information on the programme. Finished projects will have the possibility to hold posters.

Please join us to celebrate together 21 years of international innovation cooperation!

CELTIC-NEXT Proposers’ Brokerage Day Autumn Call 2024

CELTIC-NEXT is pleased to announce that the next Autumn Call 2024 will be launched on the 28th of May 2024 with an online event. The Proposers’ Brokerage Day will take place on the 5th of September 2024 in physical presence. The location will be announced via our Newsletter and our Web site.

These events are the occasion for all to find potential partners consortium and to get the first feedback from the Public Authorities.

CELTIC-NEXT bottom-up calls are the perfect opportunity to enable projects in the field of next-generation communications for the digital society that contribute to a sustainable world. By applying and participating in any CELTIC-NEXT Calls, your organization can access national public funding for your R&D project as well as a large community sharing your interests.

› Further information to come

https://www.celticnext.eu/

Smart connected world meets clean energy

Ongoing CELTIC-NEXT signed collaborations

Memorandum of Intent signed with ESA to enable faster convergence and development between terrestrial and non-terrestrial networks & services

                             

On November 22, 2021, Eureka Cluster CELTIC-NEXT and the European Space Agency (ESA) formalized a partnership through the signing of a Memorandum of Intent (MoI) in Porto, Portugal. This collaboration aims to strengthen ties between their respective communities and drive economic growth and job creation by coordinating research, development, and innovation (R&D&I) activities in integrated space and terrestrial systems enabled by 5G and 6G technologies.

This MoI emphasizes leveraging the synergies between ESA and CELTIC-NEXT to maximize investment returns and contribute towards achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals. In today’s dynamic political and economic environment, Space ICT has emerged as a critical pillar for sovereignty and resilience. The growing importance of Space ICT is evident as it becomes central to global industry and government agendas. From an economic standpoint, new non-European players are disrupting the sector with innovations like Low-Earth-Orbit (LEO) satellites and High-Altitude Pseudo-Satellites (HAPS).

The collaboration between CELTIC-NEXT and ESA aims to address these challenges by fostering cross-fertilization and collaboration between their communities. This partnership will facilitate the convergence and development of terrestrial and non-terrestrial network and service technologies, including three-dimensional networking.


Signing the Memorandum of Intent (from left): Eureka Chairman Miguel Bello Mora,
Elodie Viau – Director of Telecommunications and Integrated Applications and Head of ECSAT
at the European Space Agency (ESA), and CELTIC Office Director Xavier Priem.

To implement this collaboration, both organizations will leverage their respective funding instruments, processes, and expertise while coordinating on specific themes such as network convergence, system development, business ecosystem models, and spectrum sharing. Joint activities will include roadmapping, advisory boards, knowledge networks, webinars, workshops, and testbeds/trial platforms to support common objectives and priorities.

Further collaboration to expect

This MoI marks the beginning of a series of strategic collaborations for CELTIC-NEXT, enriching its support and impact within the ICT community. The collaboration offers an ideal platform for the space and terrestrial ICT communities to collaborate on strategic initiatives and projects. CELTIC-NEXT looks forward to the space community’s contributions and engagement in upcoming joint initiatives focused on Space ICT and three-dimensional networking.

Memorandum of Understanding signed with the 6G-IA to establish ­synergies and complementary activities in collaborative ICT research

                                                

The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to collaborate on ICT research between Eureka Cluster CELTIC-NEXT and the 6G Smart Networks and Services Industry Association (6G-IA) is now signed for a year now. As its aim is to enhance economic growth and job creation through joint R&D&I activities and the commercialization of outcomes, this collaboration leverages the strengths of both organizations to maximize investment returns and support the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

In the context of today’s rapidly evolving social, political, and economic landscape, information and communication technology (ICT) plays a crucial role in ensuring national sovereignty and resilience. Recent global events such as the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and the COVID-19 pandemic have underscored the critical importance of both terrestrial and non-terrestrial ICT services as essential components of a country’s infrastructure. To address these challenges, there is a pressing need to increase and optimize funding for R&D&I initiatives in European, with the goal of accelerating innovation and enhancing the competitiveness of the ICT industry.

This collaboration is for now facilitating cross-program discussions and soon workshops and joint projects will be organised to aim at advancing technology readiness and addressing key societal challenges outlined in the Sustainable Development Goals. It encourages cross-program discussions, workshops, and collaborative projects to advance technology readiness and achieve Sustainable Development Goals. Consultations on Strategic Research and Innovation Agendas (SRIAs), organize joint activities, and leverage resources to achieve common objectives are in discussion. Regular reviews will ensure effective collaboration and alignment with each community priorities.

Opportunities for the future

This MoU represents a new collaboration for CELTIC-NEXT and expands its impact within the ICT community. It provides a platform for the 6G-IA and CELTIC-NEXT communities to collaborate on strategic topics and projects.

To operationalize the MoU, the signatories have committed to several actions, including promoting collaboration within their respective communities, consulting on Strategic Research and Innovation Agendas (SRIAs), organizing joint activities, and leveraging their combined resources and expertise.

Outlook

These two memorandums signed with two different big organisation in their domains are a significant milestone for CELTIC-NEXT, representing a strategic expansion of its impact within the ICT community. By fostering closer ties and cooperation, they provide valuable platforms for both communities to collaborate on critical strategic initiatives and projects that will shape the future of ICT.

They will also allow knowledge exchange and SRIA’s cross collaborations in the years to come, will help levering funding schemes across low TRL topics, support an easier pipelining for proposals and offer innovative entities the full panel between top-down programs and bottom-up spaces for their collaborative projects.

Overview of CELTIC-NEXT running projects

Presenting our current 15 innovative projects in the domain of ICT

In the first half of 2024, the CELTIC-NEXT ICT cluster has a total of 15 ongoing projects that started between October 2021 and May 2024. These projects collectively represent cutting-edge ICT research and development efforts focused on diverse areas such as networking, AI, healthcare and wireless technologies to drive innovation and address critical challenges.

These 15 projects aim to discover technological advancements and outcomes in high technology readiness level (TRL) in the domain of ICT. In the perspective of CELTIC-NEXT vision to obtaining results with a successful technology-market oriented approach, the projects represent an investment of 132.9 millions of euros in public and private money. Around 311 companies, start-ups, SMEs and major industrial-players, Research and Technologyl Organisation (RTO), and universities are involved in actual research from 22 different countries in and outside Europe.

 

EMBRACE: Efficient Multi-Band netwoRk Architecture and  Components for Petabit/s Elastic networks
Start Date: October 2021         End Date: October 2024       Budget (total):  3207.6 K€
Project Coordinator: Orange SA, France

EMBRACE develops, investigates, and demonstrates the required photonic technology for a complete optical system exploiting the entire spectrum of the single mode fibre (SMF) for applications from metro to long-haul reach. This solution is supported by the large availability of SMFs with almost negligible water peak and thus extended low-loss spectral window. Right now, EMBRACE project is working on solutions to exploit the whole 1260-1625 nm spectrum. Within the project, the designed and prototyped multi-band (MB) components (coherent transceivers, optical amplifiers, wavelength selective switches, lasers) will be integrated into a permanent project demonstrator and tested over real installed fibres owned by the operators participating to the consortium.

 

SAFE HOME: Security-aware fog-based efficient Home monitoring for elders
Start Date: April 2021            End Date: March 2024         Budget (total):  2853 K€
Project Coordinator: Instituto de Telecomunicações, Portugal

SAFE-HOME is a multi-disciplinary project, which exploits the intersection of a number of disruptive technologies, namely sensor design, artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms, and recent advances in wireless networking, with emphasis on the interoperability of fog-cloud. The project aims at designing a system for monitoring the activity and movement of elders within a confined space (Home), in order to understand their activity level, with ability to identify emergency situations for alerting specific personnel, based on emergency type (e.g. medical staff, ambulance, or emergency contact). SAFE-HOME will also consider users surrounding information (e.g. neighbourhood and city information) in order to enrich solution results.

 

iCare4NextG: Integrated care for next-generation
Start Date: April 2021            End Date: March 2024         Budget (total):  3421 K€
Project Coordinator: Turkcell Teknoloji, Turkey

The project develops a service framework where increased possibilities for improved wellness and care at home, directed by data driven methods, integrating needs from different stages of life, different caregivers and different diagnosis. A combined strategy of service framework development, business modelling and use case solutions are undertaken and this multi-track approach aims at developing a service framework that enables the creation of flexible user solutions and a business milieu where new digital business models can flourish. Care integration would incorporate a number of different providers, to deliver to the end user in an integrated way.

 

AI-NET Flagship: Accellerating digital transformation in Europe by Intelligent NETwork automation
Start Date: June 2021            End Date: August 2024          Budget (total): 66547 K€
Sub-projects: AI-NET-ANIARA, AI-NET-PROTECT, AI-NET-ANTILLAS 

The most recent CELTIC flagship project is AI-NET, launched in mid-2021 with a €66M total budget. Public authorities of Germany, Sweden and Finland, as well as major players from industry (both large and SME), and academia, are part of this ambitious European initiative.

 

 

AI-NET-ANIARA: Automation of Network edge Infrastructure & Applications with Artificial Intelligence
Start Date: June 2021            End Date: January 2024         Budget (total):  11214 K€
Project Coordinator: Ericsson AB (EAB), Sweden

The primary objective of the ANIARA project is to provide enablers and solutions for high-performance services deployed and operated at the network edge. To manage complexity, of artificial intelligence is used, to complement traditional optimisation algorithms. Deep edge network nodes will be deployed at locations not prepared for the power requirements of edge-centric compute.

 

 

AI-NET-PROTECT: Providing Resilient & secure networks [Operating on Trusted Equipment] to CriTical infrastructures
Start Date: June 2021            End Date: June 2024         Budget (total):  26585 K€
Project Coordinator: ADVA Optical Networking SE, Germany

The primary focus of the AI-NET-PROTECT sub-project is to provide automated resilience and secure networks operated on trusted equipment to critical infrastructures and enterprises. AI-NET-PROTECT will ensure the protection of critical data, network performance (like latency, throughput, availability), and infrastructure (against tampering and attacks).

 

 

AI-NET-ANTILLAS: Accellerating digital transformation in Europe by Intelligent NETwork automation
Start Date: June 2021            End Date: August 2024         Budget (total):  28748 K€
Project Coordinator: Nokia, Germany

AINET project objective is to provide enablers and solutions for high-performance services deployed and operated at the network edge. They contribute to cyber-resilient intelligent network automation from the edge to the core through the FOG, and from the services to the physical resources, for end users, machine-to-machine and IoT networks. AINET-ANTILLAS concentrates on applying these technologies to automotive / teleoperated driving, manufacturing industry, public safety, and public utility businesses. The goal is to provide enablers and solutions for high-performance services deployed and operated at the network edge or in the cloud.

 

ENTRY100GHz: Energy-Efficient Radio Systems at 100 GHz
Start Date: September 2021       End Date: August 2024    Budget (total):  9151.42 K€
Project Coordinator: Chalmers University of Technology (CTH), Sweden

The aim of the current project is to develop a highly efficient integrated antenna module and RF front-end solution with adaptive waveform generation in spatial, temporal, and frequency domains for beyond 5G (B5G) wireless communication infrastructure at 100GHz band and support other application sectors such as security & sensing, imaging, industrial IOT, automation etc. The proposed solution will be able to adapt dynamically to different user scenarios such as ultra-high data-rate multi-user broadband communication, reliable high mobility connectivity, ultra-low latency machine communications etc.

 

 

USWA: Ultra Scalable Wireless Access
Start Date: December 2022   End Date: November 2025  Budget (total): 12883.18 K€
Project Coordinator: Wirepas Oy, Finland

The project Ultra Scalable Wireless Access (USWA) focuses on technology research how to utilize the new DECT-2020 NR radio technology developed in ETSI in various use cases. DECT-2020 NR provides modern radio interface design with state-of-the-art radio capabilities for industrial use cases. DECT-2020 NR technology supports natively mesh radio network architecture which is enabling large scale local networking by relaying data between different devices and also enabling direct communication between devices. DECT-2020 NR technology can operate in a specific license exempt band used by legacy DECT.

 

 

F4iTECH: Federated AI Platform for Industrial Technologies
Start Date: March 2022         End Date: February 2025      Budget (total):  2232.44 K€
Project Coordinator: Inosens, Turkey

Current AI-based industrial applications have a linear sequential approach for data collection, processing and model deployment cycles where each part of the cycle has a clear task. However, collecting the data required for learning the desired models in one place may not always be possible and centralized data collection may cause data quality issues. This project aims to provide great benefit to the manufacturing and transportation industries by efficiently incorporating artificial intelligence into the production or operation line to resolve and eliminate some invisible and internalized problems that cost a lot.

 

COA-CFD: Cloud-based Online Access to Computational Fluid Dynamic Simulations
Start Date: March 2022          End Date: March 2026         Budget (total):  15836.8 K€
Project Coordinator: Engineering Software Steyr, Austria

Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations utilize computational resources to simulate free flows of fluids (air, water, etc.), and the interaction of fluids with surfaces. CFD simulations are used in development of new mechanical parts in the automotive, aerospace and military industries to increase efficiency. CFD based experiments are cost effective in comparison to conventional methods and can estimate properties which cannot be empirically measured. For the last decade, Engineering Software Steyr GmbH (ESS) has been developing new CFD capabilities (particle-based methods) in the form of four new solvers (CFD simulation programs) and hybridizing them to increase usability.

 

AICom4Health: AI-Powered Communication for Health Crisis Management
Start Date: January 2022         End Date: May 2025        Budget (total):  4985.30 K€
Project Coordinator: SII Concatel S. L., Spain

The objective of AIcom4Health project is to offer an innovative solution towards recovering the pandemics negative impacts on public health ,healthcare access and socioeconomics through remote monitoring -AI based platform’s integration to the public’s daily life whereas employing healthier citizens for smart cities s in the area of 5G and beyond, network slicing, edge computing, artificial intelligence and machine learning based on feasible use cases including both medical and non-medical sensors for making accurate decisions and predicting risks against contagion in the future. The use cases include integration of an IoT platform with various types of sensors to monitor physiological, behavioral and environmental data from natural indoors and outdoors environments.

 

 

6G-SKY: 6G for Connected Sky
Start Date: May 2022            End Date: April 2025         Budget (total):  8924 K€
Project Coordinator: Airbus Defence and Space GmbH, Germany

6G for Connected Sky project aims at solutions to enable reliable and robust connectivity for aerial and ground users via flexible and adaptive network architecture adopting multiple technologies such as satellite and direct air to ground communication (DA2GC). In addition, this project focuses on novel wireless network design and management schemes in 3-dimensional (3D) space including different types of flying vehicles with their unique requirements. Another focus is to provide robust, low latency and/or high-capacity communications to ground users in the rural areas without any infrastructure via non terrestrial networks (NTNs), which are already initially introduced in 5G.

 

 

CANOPY: Cognitive and Automated Network Operations for Present and Beyond
Start Date: January 2022       End Date: December 2024   Budget (total):  4203.35 K€
Project Coordinator: Celfinet, Portugal

The objective of this project is to create a novel NOC proactive management solution that will enable the evolution from the current reactive mode of operation towards a proactive and preventive mode. The vision is to predict problems that are going to occur before they impact customer service, providing an integrated view of the issue being solved, performing Root Cause Analysis (RCA) to understand and identify what causes triggered the problem and the corresponding recommended resolution.

 

CISSAN: Collective intelligence supported by security aware nodes
Start Date: May 2023            End Date: May 2026         Budget (total): 8985.23 K€
Project Coordinator: University of Jyväskylä, Finland

CISSAN proposes and implements algorithms for mitigating IoT security threats through collective decision-making and with a reduced impact on the limited resources of IoT devices. These algorithms are based on research and innovation in optimizing the distribution of security capabilities and aggregating the intelligence in IoT network nodes. Three industrial use cases, on the use of IoT, inform the project developments and are used for validating and demonstrating the project results: (i) public transportation; (ii) smart energy grids; (iii) mining and tunnelling operations.

 

 

IoDT2: Internet of Digital Twin Things
Start Date: May 2024            End Date: April 2027         Budget (total): 2504 K€
Project Coordinator: Loughborough University, UK

As current digital twin practices have limitations due to the central location of most digital twin models, which can cause data processing latency and network bandwidth issues, the freshly labelled project will be built on an Information Centric Network (ICN) inspired digital twin network called Digital Twin Centric Network (DTCN). This will allow digital twin models, data, and compute resources to be published and located across networks easily. This framework will have applications in various industries, such as manufacturing (Industry 4.0), healthcare, and smart cities. To demonstrate and validate the framework, the proposers will use an asset management use case in the aerospace sector.

Further information

CELTIC-NEXT website – https://www.celticnext.eu/running-projects/