Infocom World Conference & Exhibition 2024
(November 12, 2024)

Research-oriented Workshop:
“Moving from Research Studies and Trials towards an Implementation of Beneficial Use Cases and Innovative Market Applications
via the Inclusion of B5G/6G and AI”

Organized and coordinated by:
Dr. Ioannis P. Chochliouros
Telecommunications Engineer, M.Sc., Ph.D.
Member of IPv6 Hall of Fame
Head of Fixed Network R&D Programs Section

Research and Development Department, Fixed & Mobile
Core Network DevOps & Technology Strategy Division, Fixed & Mobile
Hellenic Telecommunications Organization S.A. (OTE)

The present Workshop entitled as “Moving from Research Studies and Trials towards an Implementation of Beneficial Use Cases and Innovative Market Applications via the Inclusion of B5G/6G and AI” within the framework of the Infocom World 2024 Conference and Exhibition aims to deal with a variety of potential challenges and opportunities promoted by ongoing EU-funded research activities, being able to support market growth and development at global level. Research studies and related trials can provide essential feedback and be assessed as essential “drivers” for the adoption of innovative features and solutions in the market sectors, extended with broad involvement of numerous verticals. These support digitization of economy and society and promote digital inclusion at numerous levels. As the evolution towards the creation of an effective beyond 5G (B5G) reality takes place very rapidly and with unprecedented rates, modern technologies/facilities radically change the shape. Within this framework, Artificial Intelligence is expected to play a major role. In our Workshop we intend to depict and examine this process via the specific frameworks of selected European research programs as well as to focus on direct applications in the market sector, demonstrating the effect that both 5BG/6G and AI can realize.

The Workshop is organized in eight (-8-) thematic Sessions comprising in total of fifty-four (-54-) distinct presentations, so that to present both the scope, context, challenges and results of related EU-funded projects as well as to identify further opportunities for growth. There are strong conceptual interactivities and potential common “grounds” between the thematic contexts of these sessions. The proposed distinction can be assessed as based on a per project context basis, aiming to identify and discuss the essential features of specific on-going research actions taking place in the current Horizon Europe (HE), SNS-JU and DIGITAL frameworks, all being at the forefront of the European R&D initiative.
In particular, nineteen (-19-) European projects are discussed in total, while there are seven (-7-) distinct thematic sessions fully dedicated to eight (-8-) specific European projects, currently being in progress. All sessions are aligned to current European research initiatives and have been structured in a way to “depict and/or to elucidate in more depth and in detail” the corresponding domains.

Recently, after the global deployment and the wide penetration of Fifth Generation (5G) mobile networks, several data-intensive applications and verticals which require specific network parameters have undergone a deep transformation due to the availability of high data rate, bandwidth and reliability. The broad establishment of the 5G mobile communications technology is already showing signs of becoming a major factor in “driving productivity” and is expected to be the “key enabler” for long-envisaged, highly integrated and autonomous applications in many sectors. Actually, it becomes evident that this new wave of technology will further accelerate digitalization of economy and society, as a whole.
Previous generations of mobile technologies mostly satisfied human communications in the form of voice, data and Internet. On the contrary, 5G and its advancements towards B5G (Beyond 5G) – and/or 6G –practically aim for industrial communications to help digitize the economy in a broader scope and also contribute towards a form of beneficial worldwide digital transformation. In this framework, various vertical sectors such as, for example, industrial IoT, eHealth, education, media and entertainment, public safety, smart cities, manufacturing, agriculture, automotive and transportation will likely be the “leading adopters”. In particular, wireless and mobile communication technologies are expected to progress far beyond anything seen so far in wireless-enabled applications, making everyday lives smoother and safer and dramatically improving the efficiency of corresponding businesses.

Recently, the IMT-2030 has released the overall objectives for 6G networks. With 10 up to 100 times more data flowing and 10 up to 100 times more industry adoptions, the research, development and deployment of 6G will be a global race with respect to technology capabilities, economic strength and global political impact. In this context, information and communication technologies (ICT) should be agile and robust with respect to the massive data generated by the mobile devices also due to urbanization and from smart city ecosystems (such as smart healthcare and smart transportation).
Due to the multiplicity of the sectors covered and the great variety of technologies to be implemented, it is expected that 6G will create a new era where billions of connected “things”, humans and other equipment (such as robots, drones and vehicles) will generate Zettabytes of digital information. In this scope, 6G will be dealing with more challenging applications (e.g., holographic telepresence and immersive communication) and shall “meet” far more stringent requirements, if compared to previous generations. In practice, 6G shall be set to support various novel and evolved use cases (UCs) – as well as related application domains – that shall fulfill important societal needs and create value in multiple ways. New interactions will be made possible, between humans and machines, which are expected to benefit citizens, societies and involved industries.

Thus, 6G will be the mobile network generation that will help us tackle such sort of critical and high-demanding challenges, as it will probably be a self-contained ecosystem of Artificial Intelligence (AI). It will progressively evolve from being human-centric to being both human- and machine-centric and will bring a near-instant and unrestricted complete wireless connectivity. A new landscape will also appear for the enterprises and the market players, due to the convergence that 6G will allow in the fields of connectivity, robotics, cloud and secure and trustworthy commerce.
This will drastically “reform” the way enterprises – and market actors in general – operate. The novel 6G architecture is expected to be sufficiently flexible and efficient, to enable easy integration of “everything” (e.g., a network of networks, joint communication and sensing, non-terrestrial networks and terrestrial communication) encompassing AI-powered enablers along with local and distributed compute capabilities. The use of AI everywhere in the network, where it can be lead to beneficial flavours, shall also enhance network performance. AI and Machine Learning (ML) will help to maintain operation cost-effectiveness of envisioned complex 6G services, such as the interaction on human-digital-physical worlds and Internet of Senses, to automate some level of decision-making processes and to achieve a zero-touch approach.

The main principles of a future mobile communication system should be the ability to handle a higher degree of flexibility and functionality. This will enable 6G to support new UCs with special networks/verticals, while offering both public and private smart networks and services in mixed environments, supported by advanced and adaptable functionalities.
On the other hand, past experiences have demonstrated that every new generation of mobile communication systems brings with it completely new application capabilities, significantly differentiated from the previous ones. In that respect, it is evident that new applications prospects shall offer new application horizons to connectivity systems. Because of the multiplicity of novel UCs potentially generating massive amounts of data, 6G systems will also have to natively integrate analytic and intelligence capabilities far beyond the reach of existing systems, in view of enabling real-time decision-making on high data volumes. Hence, connected intelligence is expected to become a distinguishing feature of 6G systems, both at level of services for the 6G platforms’ performance and efficiency and at level of the specific services of vertical UCs running on top of such platforms. Simultaneously, the very large volumes of data that will have to be processed by 6G systems in a diversity of business-critical applications call for ultrahigh levels of security whilst respecting trust and data privacy.

The involvement of vertical customers in the current deployment of 5G/B5G networks increases the need for realizing early and extended tests and measurements, considering the rigorous requirements of the vertical applications and the introduction of new business models. The exploitation of network and computing resource virtualization and sharing (such as Network Functions Virtualization (NFV), Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Slicing) as well as the different technology domains employed at the infrastructure substrate (i.e., radio, cloud, transport) are making the B5G network increasingly complex to manage, monitor and test. The foreseen scenery of ubiquitous 5G/B5G services implicates for concrete and extensive trials, validation tests and appropriate sets of measurements that innovating vertical players have to perform in order to reach to reliable conclusions affecting not only current 5G but also 5BG performance.
In particular, the proposed trial environments shall “reflect” the conditions and configuration that the vertical applications will face/confront on their launch in production networks, to verify whether the corresponding vertical applications may be potentially considered as “5G-ready”. Furthermore, by early testing innovative UCs over standards-based 5G facilities – or testbeds – and by applying a methodical approach, a broad range of vertical industries may timely make well-informed business decisions on launching their services with guaranteed performance levels and, therefore, with higher chances of business success. As a consequence, it becomes a matter of high priority to define suitable test and measurement methods, test cases, procedures and KPIs formalization and validation to the greatest possible extent, with the aim of ensuring a unique vision on how to support the entire lifecycle of the B5G network, from R&D to actual deployed environments.

The convergence of fast innovative features at a variety of verticals with the development and roll-out of 5G/B5G brings new opportunities, but also implies for extra risks and challenges, particularly for the “pioneering” initiatives. In parallel, 5G vendors and Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) cannot just wait for verticals to transit along such challenges alone and, therefore, usually offer their technical and logistics support from the early stages of development and through commercialization, for the wider benefit of the market. Before any testing activities, it is essential to consider a set of standard 5G KPIs for assessing potential feasibility of the corresponding UC, over a 5G network. More than often, listed 5G KPIs are associated to their values for maximum theoretically achievable performance. Aiming to promoting upgrades, existing B5G projects plan for increasing levels of 5G KPIs at their network facilities, deploy/upgrade their 5G infrastructures periodically, perform systematic measurements/testing and validation for determining and demonstrating the best achievable performance and make that information available to verticals.
This sort of interactivity enhances collaboration and promotes innovation. The ultimate transition towards 5BG/6G requires full interoperability between all entities on all levels implying for the adoption of global standards, to ensure deployment and use of an affordable and scalable 6G system that may be effectively utilized, worldwide. Hence, the journey to 6G evolves with the identification of suitable UCs that attempt to predict and delineate major trends in usage scenarios, thus helping to navigate needs and/or requirements for future generational change. Such predictions will contribute to specify future connectivity and service-related requirements, to support market adoption and applicability.

The deployment of 5G in Europe – and globally – will further increase the competitiveness and the resilience of ICT industry, mainly by enabling to digitize and automate business processes in diverse market sectors such as smart cities and smart factories, healthcare, education, media production and delivery, public safety, agriculture, connected cars and many more. In the longer term, the convergence of multiple business process with connectivity platforms, as initiated by 5G, will further strengthen and address domains where performance requirements cannot be matched by current 5G capabilities. Novel systems beyond 5G – or even towards 6G – will have to “meet” new levels of vertical performance requirements, not only within the reach of the foreseeable evolution of 5G systems as currently planned under 3GPP (The Third Generation Partnership Project), bar far beyond of it.

Corresponding usage scenarios require that the well-known Key Performance Indicators – KPIs (e.g., peak data rate, user-experienced data rate, spectrum efficiency, area traffic capacity, connection density, mobility, latency, reliability, security, privacy and resilience) need to be further enhanced and extended in values where 5G cannot deliver today. Current 5G-based KPIs have been defined by several Standard Developing Organizations (SDOs) and several tools are now available in different communities for performing corresponding measurements. However, 6G also defines new capabilities such as, for example, coverage, sensing-related capabilities, AI-related capabilities, sustainability, interoperability and positioning.
For several among these new aspects, there are no existing clearly defined metrics. New methodologies (e.g., Key Value Indicators (KVIs)) and widely accepted related frameworks need to be developed, in order to provide appropriate solutions, per case. Using KVIs when developing 6G serves two essential purposes that is to: (i) demonstrate and validate that 6G would contribute towards meeting diverse societal needs, and; (ii) impact technology development in a value-benefitting direction. Thus, it can be expected that 6G networks will further enhance KPIs and will develop and exploit innovative sets of UCs characterized by high Quality of Services (QoS) and high Quality of Experiences (QoE). These will help further to digitize economy and society, bringing new revenues and improving living standards.

As already mentioned above, 5G brings significant advancements in speed, capacity and connectivity. These are particularly beneficial for Internet of Things (IoT) applications. With its ultra-low latency, high data transfer rates and the ability to connect a massive number of devices simultaneously, 5G practically enhances functionality and efficiency of IoT systems. In industrial settings, in particular, 5G enables seamless integration of IoT devices for automation, predictive maintenance and enhanced operational efficiency. Additionally, 5G’s improved reliability and energy efficiency contribute to the development of more sustainable and scalable IoT solutions. Artificial intelligence (AI), when integrated with IoT, provides a powerful tool for automated data analysis and anomaly detection. This can guarantee for the integrity and safety of infrastructures. AI algorithms can analyze vast amounts of sensor data collected by IoT devices embedded in various environments. By applying machine learning and predictive analytics, AI can detect patterns, identify potential issues and predict failures before they occur, enabling proactive maintenance and reducing the risk of operational failures.
On the other hand, cloud technologies play a vital role in enabling scalable IoT applications by providing the necessary infrastructure, storage and processing power to handle vast amounts of data generated by sensor devices. With cloud computing, IoT systems can leverage robust, flexible and on-demand resources to manage and analyze data in real-time, ensuring efficient performance and responsiveness. Scalability of cloud platforms also allows businesses to seamlessly expand their IoT networks, without significant upfront investments in hardware. The integration of IoT with cloud computing drives innovation and accelerates the deployment of smart solutions across industries (such as structural health monitoring, agriculture, manufacturing and Smart Cities).

Following to the above description, purely implicating towards a fully dynamic – but also complex – framework for technological, business, financial, legal, social and ethical progress, our Workshop aims to identify opportunities and challenges coming from the study of well-defined use cases serving various vertical sectors, towards the establishment of a modern 5 BG/6G reality. Based on the frameworks of several ongoing EU-funded research programs, our aim is to demonstrate innovative features coming from those actions, being able to offer benefits to all potential actors.
 
The Workshop comprises eight selected Session that are discussed as follows:

Session 1:

A “concrete” pillar of the Workshop is the dynamic framework promoted by the I3 (Interregional Innovation Investment) Strand 1 AMBITIOUS project (“Advanced CoMputing Continuum Solutions for Boosting DigITalization acrOss EUropean RegionS”), intending to offer a fundamental technological infrastructure, which will provide advanced data aggregation and clean-up, analytics, AI-enabled forecasting and secure information exchange mechanisms, via a transparent computing continuum infrastructure, to be integrated with existing, mature services of the relevant stakeholders (i.e., mainly Small- and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs)), unleashing for them yet unforeseen functionalities and opening up new pathways of commercial exploitation. The project consortium includes 18 partners from 5 European countries and it is coordinated by Lulea Technical University (Sweden).
AMBITIOUS encompasses three core objectives that are synergistically intertwined: Firstly, it aims to empower European companies’ digital competencies and increase their competitiveness on the global stage. Secondly, the project strives to foster innovation by integrating technological solutions that “address” key challenges in security, environmental sustainability and well-being. Thirdly, it seeks to facilitate collaboration among industry, stakeholders, academia, and the public sector, amplifying its overall impact through collective effort and shared expertise. AMBITIOUS’ main goal is to offer a fundamental technological infrastructure, which will provide advanced data aggregation and clean-up, analytics, AI-enabled forecasting and secure information exchange mechanisms, via a transparent computing continuum infrastructure. These technologies will be integrated with existing, mature services (of at least TRL6 – Technology Readiness Level 6) of the relevant stakeholders (SMEs), unleashing for them yet unforeseen functionalities and “opening new pathways” of commercial exploitation.
The envisaged fundamental infrastructure will be provided via the deployment of technological pillars, which will interact with existing services towards supporting the envisioned functionalities. Pillars are technological solutions answering crucial challenges of customers in different real-life situations that require reaction and prevention. Monitoring real-time situations, predicting of unexpected hazard occurrences or health conditions safeguarding are activities that can be highly enhanced with digital solutions in today´s world. These solutions aim at advancing the European companies in areas such as data analytics, AI, 5G, computing continuum and IoT. The solutions will be demonstrated by a diverse set of specific use cases in the sectors of safety, smart water management, precise agriculture, and innovative digital health and wellbeing services. The project proposes two technological pillars, namely: AIDA: AI-enabled data analytics and forecasting and AGORA: cooperation and data security. These pillars will be exploited as common technological infrastructures in seven use cases where: Five are for AIDA and being relevant to: (i) Surveillance and monitoring of controlled areas; (ii) Smart water management; (iii) Precision agriculture; (iv) Intelligent living-as-a-service; and (v) Innovative digital technology for real-time monitoring. Two additional use case are for AGORA, comprising: (vi) Telemedicine platform for continuous remote monitoring and patient support, and; (vii) Pediatric cardiac arrest support management.

Session 2:

SUNRISE-6G (“SUstainable federation of Research Infrastructures for Scaling-up Experimentation in 6G”) is a challenging European SNS JU Horizon Europe (HE) project aiming to create a federation of 6G test infrastructures in a pan-European facility. The project consortium includes 28 partners from 12 European member states and it is coordinated by Industrial Systems Institute / Athenà Research Center (Greece).
As the B5G/6G is expected to emerge as a “key enabler” for the intelligent digital society of 2030 and beyond, providing superior performance via groundbreaking access technologies, such as Cell-Free (CF), Radio Intelligent Surfaces (RIS) and ubiquitous wireless intelligence. 6G is expected to “trigger” a total rethink of network architecture design, which builds on the key idea of new stakeholders entering the value chain of future networks. In the same context, 6G is expected to trigger a total “rethink” of network architecture design, which builds on the key idea of new stakeholders entering into the value chain of future networks. 6G also promotes a much more sustainable approach to architect future networks that encourages infrastructure sharing and collaboration among MNOs via Network-Infrastructure as-a-service (NIaaS) models. Furthermore, 6G embraces emerging trends such as micro-operators, and pushes Edge computing towards the “deep edge” where customers can also participate in the network value chain by sharing their devices (e.g., UEs, IoT gateways, home routers, etc.).
The SUNRISE-6G approach is inspired by the “Network of Networks” concept of 6G Networks, aiming to integrate all private and public infrastructures under a massively scalable internet-like architecture. The project aspires to create a federation of 6G test infrastructures, in a pan-European facility that will support converged Testing as-a-Service (TaaS) workflows and tools, a unified catalogue of 6G enablers publicly accessible by experimenters as well as cross-domain vertical application onboarding. Experimentation and vertical application onboarding are to be offered via a Tenant Web Portal that acts as a single-entry point to the facility. The project proposes a scalable, open and standards-compliant approach to experimentation and vertical application deployment in a pan-European Federation of 6G infrastructures that provides access to a comprehensive library of 6G enablers. SUNRISE-6G examines several innovation areas: (i) New Service APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) for RAN (Radio Access Network) exposure, cross-domain vertical deployment and Digital Twinning; (ii) native AI integration of testbeds towards Intent-Driven Lifecycle Management (IDLM) of experimentation processes; (iii) near-field RIS and integrated communication and sensing; (iv) joint communications and sensing in disaggregated networks, and; (v) Non-Terrestrial 6G network access.
The project execution is based on 4 pillars, delivering: (i) The Implementation of new 6G enablers, complementary to existing ones being developed in previous SNS JU Phase 1 projects; (ii) a truly scalable and 3GPP compliant Federation solution that provides access to heterogeneous resources and devices from all Europe; (iii) a Federated AI plane aligned with AIaaS (AI as-a-Service) and MLOPS (Machine Learning Operations) paradigms which promotes a collaborative approach to AI research, benefitting immensely from scaling-up datasets and models, and; (iv) a commonly adopted Experimentation Plane, which offers common workflows to experimenters. The projects deploys 4 testbeds in 8 EU member states and focuses on the following use cases: (i) Federated Metaverse; (ii) Collaborative Robotic exploration of mining environments, and; (iii) Federated NTN (Non-Terrestrial Networks).

Session 3:

The DATAMITE (“DATA Monetization, Interoperability, Trading & Exchange”) HE project is another essential pillar of the Workshop. It foresees to revolutionize the European Data Market by helping users (such SMEs, large enterprises and public administrations) to better monetize, govern and enhance the trust of their data, empowering them to become new relevant players in the data economy. In particular, DATAMITE empowers European companies by delivering a modular, open-source and multi-domain framework to improve Data Monetizing, Interoperability, Trading and Exchange, in the form of software modules, training and business materials.
The project understands the precise nature of existing barriers and develops a simple but impactful technical framework that enables European enterprises and public administrations to overcome existing challenges and facilitate the monetization of their data. The core target consists of helping users to better monetize, govern and enhance the trust of their data by developing a set of key modules: Data Governance, Quality, Security, Sharing & Supporting Tools. Interoperability with current leading storage technologies is achieved by building them on top of existing open-source components.
DATAMITE unleashes the monetization potential at two levels: internal and external. At an internal level, users have tools to improve the quality management of their data, the adherence to FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) principles, and are able to upskill on technical and business aspects. Therefore, data becomes trustable, reducing the data-decision gap, and more reliable also in other paradigms like AI. At an external level, keeping users in control of their data provides new sources of revenue and interaction with other stakeholders, e.g., in ecosystems like the International Data Spaces (IDS), data markets or the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC). In addition, the architecture envisioned for DATAMITE enables DIHs (Digital Innovation Hubs) sandboxing, becoming a potential instructor on their onboarding of SMEs and low-tech SMEs into the data economy. Together, DATAMITE’s solutions function as a “catalyst” to boost data monetization in the European productive fabric.
DATAMITE aims to validate its results in three different use cases with a total of six pilots (covering sectors of agriculture, energy, industrial and manufacturing and climate) via demonstrating that the related framework is interoperable and usable in different domains and user needs, as: (i) Intra-corporate, multi-domain data exchange; (ii) data trading among Data Spaces, and; (iii) integration with other initiatives such as Data Markets, EU AI-on-demand platform or Digital Innovation Hubs.
To achieve this, the project relies on a consortium of 27 partners from 12 European countries and it is coordinated by the Instituto Tecnológico de Informática – ITI (Spain). DATAMITE brings together key actors of the Data Value Chain: Data Spaces technical and business stakeholders, multiple key communities (IDSA, Gaia-X, EUHUBS4DATA, AI4EUROPE, EOSC), key experts in Legal and SSH aspects to guarantee legal and societal compliance, and facilitators on open-source community building and standardization activities to accelerate the transfer to the market.
This session also includes a presentation from the PISTIS (“Promoting and Incentivizing Federated, Trusted, and Fair Sharing and Trading of Interoperable Data Assets”) HE project; its scope is to bring forward a reference federated data sharing/trading and monetization platform for secure, trusted and controlled exchange and usage of proprietary data assets and data-driven intelligence. PISTIS will advance the available techniques and technologies, such as federated data discovery and sharing, DLTs, data non-fungible tokens (NFTs), AI-driven data quality assessment and monetization, to build trust among stakeholders and assuage their concerns. The project consortium involves 31 partners from 11 European countries and it is coordinated by FOKUS Fraunhofer (Germany).
The session finalizes with a presentation from the ELOQUENCE (“Multilingual and Cross-cultural interactions for context-aware, and bias-controlled dialogue systems for safety-critical applications”) HE project. This emerges as a beacon of innovation, reshaping the landscape of conversational AI. By harnessing advanced language models, ELOQUENCE empowers businesses and developers to create more natural, efficient, and meaningful interactions. The project is pioneering the development of advanced voice/chat bot technologies aimed at transforming unstructured dialogues into comprehensible, safe, and unbiased interactions. The main focus is upon creating self-learning, adaptable models for diverse languages and use cases, emphasizing sustainability and European values, especially in safety-critical applications. The project consortium involves 16 partners from 10 European countries and it is coordinated by Telefonica Innovation Digital SL (Spain).

Session 4:

NEMO (“Next Generation Meta Operating System”) is a HE project aiming to establish itself as the “game changer” of AIoT (Artificial Intelligence of Things) – Edge – Cloud Continuum by introducing an open source, flexible, adaptable, cyber-secure and multi-technology meta-Operating System, sustainable during and after the end of the project.
The rapid expansion of the Internet of Things (IoT) signals a paradigm “shift” in the way digital technology intersects with human life. This proliferation of interconnected “things” gives rise to an array of applications, ranging from urban mobility to smart agriculture and energy management. This evolution moves us towards the advent of the Artificial Intelligence of Things, an integration of artificial intelligence with our connected world. However, this transformation poses distinct challenges, specifically with regards to the provision of real-time, secure and trusted support from edge cloud systems, coupled with AI. The NEMO platform is designed to “address” these challenges head-on. It acknowledges the need for on-device intelligence to enable AIoT to act as semi-autonomous entities and recognizes that this intelligence should be an integral part of the AIoT meta-Operating System (mOS). By focusing on a transparent IoT-to-Edge-to-Cloud continuum, NEMO aims to optimize task migration securely, providing timely orchestration of micro-services.
NEMO also recognizes the importance of providing efficient development tools. By offering intent-based DevZeroOps tools and plugin mechanisms, it facilitates faster development and wider deployment of related AIoT services. A key part of NEMO’s strategy is to provide an open and modular mOS ensuring easy deployment to any AIoT device, while maintaining stringent cybersecurity and privacy standards.
To achieve technology maturity and massive adoption, NEMO: (i) leverages and interfaces existing systems, technologies and Open Standards, and; (ii) introduces novel concepts, tools, testing facilities/Living Labs and engagement campaigns to go beyond today’s state-of-the-art, making breakthrough research and creating sustainable innovation.
The project consortium involves 28 partners from 10 European countries and it is coordinated by ATOS Spain S.A. (Spain).
Leveraging on consortium partners technological excellence, along with clear business and exploitation strategies, the CyberNEMO (“End-to-end Cybersecurity to NEMO meta-OS”) HE project builds on top of NEMO to add end-to-end cybersecurity and trust on IoT-Edge-Cloud-Data Computing Continuum (CC). A cybersecure and trusted CC of IoT/Edge/Cloud/Data will bring great benefits. However, with less data stored and processed in central data centres and more data processed closer to the user, cybersecurity, privacy and security breaches will no longer be able to focus on protecting central points of connection (POC), but consider any segment as non-trusted.
CyberNEMO will establish itself as a paradigm-shift to support resilience, risk preparedness, awareness, detection and mitigation within Critical Infrastructures (CI) deployments and across supply chains. To achieve technology maturity and massive adoption, CyberNEMO will not “reinvent the wheel”, but leverages on existing by-design, by-innovation and by-collaboration zero-trust cybersecurity and privacy protection systems; it also introduces novel concepts, methods, tools, testing facilities and engagement campaigns to intending to create sustainable innovation, already evident within the project lifetime. CyberNEMO considers cybersecure federated on-device ML and data sovereignty tools as core components to its architecture. This will enable, time critical cybersecurity decision and malware removal to take place on the IoT nodes, while more complex and computing intensive decisions to take place at the edge or the cloud in a cybersecure and trusted CC. The project will offer end-to-end and full stack protection, ranging from a low level Zero-Trust Network Access layer up to a human AI explainable Situation Perception, Comprehension & Protection (SPCP) framework and tools, collaborative micro-services Auditing, Certification & Accreditation and a pan-European Knowledge Sharing, risk Assessment, threat Analysis and incidents Mitigation (SAAM) collaborative platform. Validation and penetration testing will take place in 6 pilots including OneLab for integration, various Critical Infrastructures (Energy, Water, Healthcare), media distribution, agrifood and fintech supply chain, along with their cross-domain, cross-border federation. Sustainability and adoption will be offered via the de-facto European Open source Eclipse Foundation ecosystem. The project consortium comprises 23 partners from 11 European countries and it is coordinated by Synelixis S.A. (Greece).
The current session also incorporates a presentation from NEPHELE (“A lightweight software stack and synergetic meta-orchestration framework for the next generation compute continuum”) HE project. Its vision is to enable the efficient, reliable and secure end-to-end orchestration of hyper-distributed applications over programmable infrastructure that is spanning across the compute continuum from Cloud-to-Edge-to-IoT, removing existing openness and interoperability barriers in the convergence of IoT technologies against cloud and edge computing orchestration platforms, and introducing automation and decentralized intelligence mechanisms powered by 5G and distributed AI technologies. The project consortium involves 19 partners from 9 European countries and it is coordinated by the National Technical University of Athens (Greece).

Session 5:

Among the pillars of the Workshop is the innovative background of the ongoing 6G-PATH (“6G Pilots and Trials Through Europe”) SNS JU HE project, whose goal is to help foster the further development and integration of new and improved tools and products from EU companies with 5G/6G, while also measuring relevant KPIs and KVIs. The evolution of mobile telecommunications brought by 5G has been a global success, as demonstrated by the commercially available deployments worldwide leveraging the technology and majorly improving mobile services. These improvements include greater performance, flexibility and scalability, with benefits for a whole ecosystem of end-users, operators and technology providers. However, now that 5G is somehow a mainstream technology, it is vital to aim for “what comes next”. It is therefore essential that requirements are set and that new and demanding Use Cases (UCs) are specified, as means of setting the challenges for 6G and supporting its validation in realistic scenarios.
To achieve this, seven (7) dedicated testbeds will be part of the project consortium, which will be used by ten (10) use cases spread across four (4) key verticals of the market (i.e.: Farming, Education, Healthcare and Smart Cities). 6G-PATH’s strong correlation to real-market needs comes from the selection of specific use cases that will offer increased benefits, in multiple aspects (technological, financial-business, social, ethical and many more). The UCs are: water saving and smart vineyards for the Farming vertical; XR rural school, creation of the classroom of the future and XR health training for the Education vertical; 3D hydrogel patches and elderly monitoring for the Health vertical, and; Connected and sensing city, automated logistics and security coordination for the Smart Cities vertical.
The involved testbed facilities shall play a critical role in advancing the development and deployment of 6G networks. They provide a means of testing and validating new technologies, applications and services before their deployment in real-world scenarios. Therefore, 6G-PATH will explore the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and Key Value Indicators (KVIs) critical to assessing their effectiveness. These include communication KPIs such as latency, bandwidth, outage probability and energy efficiency. Additionally, the project will investigate the evolution of capabilities, including location accuracy and timeliness, end-to-end measurements, latency and AI network energy efficiency, among others. Furthermore, 6G-PATH will explore throughput, latency, reliability and quality of experience (QoE), which are essential KPIs in assessing how end-users perceive the quality of a 6G-enabled application or service. Lastly, the project will look at deployment flexibility and service availability, which are crucial indicators in reducing barriers for developers and product adoption.
In the detailed context for Financial Support to Third Parties (FSTP), the project envisions the integration of two (2) new pilot sites, extension of the testbeds with ten (10) additional technologies as well as thirty (30) new Use Cases, through dedicated Open Calls, to further involve the community and obtain more metrics and outcomes.
6G-PATH’s ultimate goal is the creation of a number of geographically distributed 6G-ready testbeds with essential and advanced features for a large variety of vertical use cases (UCs) from the project’s vertical partners and prospective third parties interested in deploying and testing their use cases, within large scale pilots and trials. For realizing this ambition, 6G-PATH plans to work closely with other ongoing/starting SNS JU Stream-B and Stream-C projects in a “feedback” loop, to promote innovation and exploit both knowledge and experiences gain from ongoing research initiatives.
The project consortium includes 26 partners from 13 European countries and it is coordinated by the Hellenic Telecommunications Organization S.A. – OTE (Greece).

Session 6:

The 6G-INTENSE (“Intent-driven NaTive AI architecturE supporting Network-Compute abstraction and Sensing at the Deep Edge”) SNS JU HE project aims to develop next-generation AI-native management and orchestration system featuring intent translation and propagation, separating service from resource management while operating in a multi-stakeholder, multi-technological, and multi-tenant environment on top of a Cloud-Edge Continuum infrastructure.
While 5G changed the landscape of mobile networks in a profound way, with an evolved architecture supporting increased capacity, spectral efficiency, and flexibility, the fast growth of data-hungry, human-centered applications (e.g., the emerging Social VR (virtual reality) / XR (extended reality) paradigms, termed the Metaverse) will soon exceed its capabilities. To this end, both industry and academia are racing to shape the next-generation communication ecosystem, namely 6G, as the platform for driving the digitization of society, which is currently underway. The 6G Smart Networks of the future will provide the high-performance and energy-efficient infrastructure on which next generation internet and other services can be developed and deployed. This will foster an industry revolution and digital transformation and will accelerate the building of smart societies leading to quality-of-life improvements, facilitating autonomous systems, haptic communication and smart healthcare.
To achieve the aforementioned objectives in a sustainable way, it is well understood that new approaches are needed in the way the telco infrastructures are architected, federated and orchestrated. These new approaches call for multi-stakeholder ecosystems that promote synergies among MNOs (Mobile Network Operators) and owners of all kinds or computational and networking resources that will share the extraordinary costs of yet another generation upgrade from 5G to 6G, while facilitating new business models. As the new architecture paradigms bring unprecedented complexity due to the sheer scale and heterogeneity of the orchestration domains involved, which should be matched by equally capable automation capabilities, 6G is aiming for the “holy grail” of pervasive AI-driven intelligence, termed as Native AI. However, Native AI needs a totally new design of the System Architecture, with automation deeply ingrained in the design of components.
This is where 6G-INTENSE steps in, proposing a new System Architecture for 6G, to deliver “6G as a Smart Service Execution platform”, fully in line with the vision of sustainable infrastructure sharing to reduce space and energy costs, and encouraging collaboration among all members of the value chain under a unified Network-Compute fabric. Key contribution is a novel automation architecture with a Native AI toolkit facilitating intent declaration, negotiation and decision automation across autonomous domains, termed as Distributed Intent-driven Management and Orchestration (DIMO). Moreover, Sensing is adopted as a key enabler, helping navigate the complexities and lack of reliability of the deep edge.
The project consortium includes 11 partners from 8 countries and it is coordinated by the Industrial Systems Institute / Athenà Research Center (Greece).

Session 7:

DeployAI (“Development and Deployment of the European AI-on-demand Platform”) is a DIGITAL coordination and support action. The project consortium includes 29 partners from 13 European countries and it is coordinated by FOKUS Fraunhofer (Germany).
The primary goal of DeployAI is to build, deploy and launch a fully operational AI-On-Demand platform (AIoDP), promoting trustworthy, ethical and transparent European AI solutions for use in the industry, mainly for SMEs, and in the public sector. To realise this ambitious objective, the project will enact a multi-faceted activity plan entailing distinct yet interconnected strands that fulfil technology-centric, innovation-centric, and ecosystem-centric objectives, in order to ensure that the AIoDP is offering state-of-the art services addressing the needs of different stakeholders across Europe.
DeployAI will provide a comprehensive and Trustworthy AI (TAI) resource catalogue and marketplace, which offers responsible AI resources and tools, ensuring easy access for end-users (i.e.: SMEs and the public sector) and asset developers, also meeting industrial standard requirements. AIoDP will allow the rapid prototyping of TAI applications and their deployment to a variety of cloud/edge/HPC (High-Performance Computing) infrastructures.
To lower the entry barrier of using AI and to offer advanced AI capabilities, responsible European LLMs (Large Language Models) will be integrated in the AIoDP to enable services for downstream tasks, fine-tuning and other complex GPAI (Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence) workflows. The AIoDP will be embedded in the European AI ecosystem, especially to EDIHs (European Digital Innovation Hubs), TEFs (Testing and Experimentation Facilities), Dataspaces, SIMPL (an open source, smart and secure middleware platform) and HPC/Cloud/Edge infrastructure. Interfaces to European initiatives and industrial AI-capable cloud platforms will be implemented, including an open API, to enable interoperability. A significant number of TAI resources will be made available on the AIoDP which will be qualified and labelled by an established process. Further, DeployAI will establish a viable AIoDP engagement strategy for AI resource providers and AI users and stimulate the European AI innovation landscape with its FSTP programme.
Active stakeholder engagement will be ensured by providing matchmaking services and an interactive landscape tool. Finally, the project will provide a sustainable business model and a viable long-term strategy for the AIoDP. Governance structures responsible for the AIoDP ongoing operations will be put in place, while a permanent legal entity to own and operate the future AIoDP will be established.

Session 8:

The fast and worldwide deployment of 5G and the evolution towards B5G/6G implicates for radical transformation(s) to the underlying infrastructures and, more specifically, to the services offered to the information technology markets that are further extended with the inclusion of numerous verticals. In addition, if Internet is assessed as a “converged complex structure” of interconnected and interactive modules of various natures, serving different aims and purposes via the use of multiple technologies and within a context of diverse business relations and/or actions, all potential challenges become greater and more critical; this happens as a multiplicity of performance issues may affect the quality of the services/facilities offered as well as the quality of experience of the involved users.
Among these may be listed issues affecting network connectivity, which is a prerequisite for the continuity of the service and for the proper operation of the network. In our session there is a presentation coming from the original framework of the ongoing 6G-EWOC (“AI-Enhanced Fiber-Wireless Optical 6G Network in Support for Connected Mobility”) SNS JU HE project, aiming to contribute to the evolutionary progress towards 6G through its focus on autonomous driving. By connecting vehicles and making their collected information instantaneously available to all traffic participants, 6G shall provide a salient feature for safety and efficient transport on the road. 6G-EWOC contributes critical technologies to support this aim. The project consortium comprises 11 partners from 8 European countries and it is coordinated by Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (Spain).
Energy efficiency is another critical challenge for the success of any future network. The exponential demand on global wireless data streaming services is “pushing” current communication network technologies to their limits. To respond to this demand, future 6G networks will depend on high-speed (Tbit/sec) data rate transmission via easily deployable and energy-efficient wireless links. Current 5G wireless systems, characterized by their small spectral bandwidths and high power electronics are fundamentally limited in terms of achievable data rates vs. energy consumption. The TeraGreen (“Towards Energy-Efficient Tbps Wireless Links”) SNS JU HE project develops a new disruptive technology path for sustainable and scalable commercial exploitation of the THz spectrum for energy-efficient and Tbit/sec wireless communication links. The project consortium comprises 6 partners from 4 European countries and it is coordinated by the Technical University of Delft (The Netherlands).
5G and B5G use Internet of Things (IoT) to offer the feature of remote monitoring for different applications (such as transportation, healthcare and energy). There are considerable advantages offered by these technologies for IoT applications like, for example, high speed connectivity, low latency, large capacity and high data rates. However, they are prone to cybersecurity threats due to networks softwarization and virtualization, thus raising additional security challenges and complexities. Artificial Intelligence is envisioned to play a pivotal role in empowering intelligent, adaptive and autonomous security management in 5G and beyond networks. Cybersecurity is the art of protecting networks, devices and data from unauthorized access or criminal use and the practice of ensuring confidentiality, integrity and availability of information.
The PHOEN2IX (“A European Cyber Resilience Framework with artificial intelligence-assisted orchestration & automation for business continuity, incident response & information exchange”) HE project provides a framework for enhanced and up-to-date view of the threat landscape, early warning and attack prediction capabilities, while it also alerts and responses prioritization driven by a business impact risk assessment. It is tailored to the needs of Operators of Essential Services (OES) and of the EU Member State (MS) National Authorities entrusted with cybersecurity. It examines pilots in the Energy, Transport and Healthcare verticals. The related consortium comprises 16 partners from 6 European countries and it is coordinated by the University of Patras (Greece).
The SecAwarenessTruss (“A Dynamic Training programme based on Cyber-Ranges Leveraging IT Security, Privacy and Data Protection Culture and Awareness of Critical
Information Infrastructures”) DIGITAL project aims to deliver a state-of-the-art cybersecurity range for developing knowledge, skill, and competence to improve European Cybersecurity resilience and coordinate response capability to the critical infrastructure through structured and dynamic training program, testing platforms, knowledge exchange and data repositories. The project contributes to improved resilience of Critical Infrastructure (CI), strength cybersecurity ranges and create highly skilled cybersecurity workforce through hands-on structured training program. The consortium includes 10 partners from 2 European countries and it is coordinated by the Technical University of Crete (Greece).
The CyberSecDome (“An advanced Virtual Reality based intrusion detection, incident investigation and response approach for enhancing the resilience, security and privacy of complex and heterogeneous digital infrastructures”) HE project will integrate advanced virtuality reality to extend the capability of the security solutions aiming
to enhance security, privacy and resilience of the Digital Infrastructure. The project will consider AI-enabled security solutions to provide a better prediction of cybersecurity threats and related risks towards an efficient and dynamic incident management and optimize collaborative response among the stakeholders within the Digital Infrastructure ecosystem. It is built on a collaboration of 15 organisations from 8 European countries and it is coordinated by Maggioli Spa (Italy).
The TRACY (“A big-data analyTics from base-stations Registrations And Cdrs e-evidence sYstem aims to deliver a state-of-the-art”) DIGITAL project aims at gaining a deeper understanding of the operational procedures involved in resolving crimes, particularly focusing on data-driven evidence processing. This includes investigating the methods, tools, and type of evidence data utilised. The proposed solution is an open-source platform that utilizes AI and telecommunications metadata in an fully operational environment, by running large scale pilots on the premises of a Law Enforcement Agency (LEA) participating in the project, while respecting fundamental rights and personal data protection laws, such as the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The consortium consists of 9 partners from 6 different European countries and it is coordinated by Performance Technologies S.A. (Greece).
The CUSTODES (“A Certification approach for dynamic, agile and reUSable assessmenT fOr composite systems of ICT proDucts, servicEs, and proceSses”) HE Project aims to enhance trust in ICT through versatile cybersecurity certification. The envisioned CUSTODES system is comprised of a variety of components with the aim to provide trustworthy, cost-effective, agile and portable conformity assessment capabilities, to a variety of interested parties, covering multiple Assurance levels of Composite ICT products or ICT services. The project involves 16 partners from 11 European countries and it is coordinated by RISE Research Institutes of Sweden AB (Sweden).
The SM4RTENANCE (“European Deployment of Smart Manufacturing Asset 4.0 MultilateRal DaTa Sharing SpacEs for an AutoNomous Operation of CollAborative MainteNance and Circular SErvices”) DIGITAL project aims to support the development of an appropriate data space that will address predictive/prescriptive maintenance and dynamic asset management, enabling third-party value-added service providers to access deep industrial data improving production line operations. SM4RTENANCE will enable the creation of a neutral cross-sectorial data space for the manufacturing industry by connecting key ecosystems, standards, experimentation facilities and data space development building blocks. It will also provide the digital infrastructure and data space service portal for manufacturing equipment industry stakeholders to exchange data in a trusted manner across data platforms and sectors. The project will also adopt the latest manufacturing and digital standards for better interoperability, interworking and federation of data, improving manufacturing asset management and predictive maintenance services. The project involves 47 partners from 11 European countries and it is coordinated by Innovalia Association (Spain).