It could no longer be overlooked at the Brussels meeting: The IPCEI-CIS, launched by the European Union under the German Council Presidency in 2020 and approved by the EU Commission in 2023, had taken on considerable dimensions. At the kick-off meeting, there were already around 120 project partners, a significant number of whom had travelled to Brussels. A project like this needed a catchier name. The curtain was raised on "8ra", the new brand name for the future European edge cloud infrastructure. However, the previous name had already emphasised the importance of the project: IPCEI stands for "Important Project of Common European Interest", CIS for "Cloud Infrastructure and Services".

At its core, 8ra aims to strengthen Europe's digital sovereignty by reducing its dependence on technologies that do not originate from the EU. The field of European cloud providers is highly fragmented, together accounting for less than 13% of the global market. The market is dominated by a few large companies from third countries, primarily the USA and China. However, their offerings are not without problems for European companies and authorities: data protection issues often remain unresolved, e.g. if the parent companies operate under non-European law. There is a lack of transparency and open standards. Vendor lock-in - a dependency on a single provider - can also quickly develop, for example if services are based on proprietary technology, interfaces are missing or if the contractual framework makes it difficult to change providers.

"There are good reasons for European companies and authorities to rely on cloud solutions made in Europe," says Dr Elisabeth Rieger, who coordinates the work on the 8ra project for secunet and also attended the meeting in Brussels. "The EU's edge cloud initiative comes at just the right time. The funding and the common framework with so many partners at European level make it much easier to develop solutions and products in this area."

8ra will not be tied to a single provider, but will place great emphasis on the interoperability of its offerings. A variety of different data processing solutions from different European vendors will be combined to enable applications that require low latency times and high speeds - for example autonomous driving or the networking of critical infrastructure such as wind turbines or public transport infrastructure.

Edge and cloud combined

The edge-to-cloud continuum combines the advantages of cloud computing with those of edge computing. What does this mean? In principle, cloud resources can be distributed across the entire network. They offer high flexibility and scalability, but have a certain time delay - latency - and are therefore often not suitable for real-time applications. Edge components, on the other hand, are located close to the respective end devices such as wind turbines - and thus at the edge of the network. Real-time data can also be processed quickly and securely there, and latency is practically zero. Data protection aspects and the sheer volume of data also increasingly favour the use of applications close to where the data is generated.

It therefore makes sense to combine the two approaches. In an edge-to-cloud continuum, data and applications can remain at the edge locations, be moved to the cloud or even be located somewhere in between, depending on their respective requirements - it is a real continuum. The edge is available for real-time data, for example, where it is processed quickly and securely. Less time- and security-critical tasks are handled in the cloud.

Central components for 8ra

Together with partners such as SAP, ADVA and Lindner AG, secunet is developing central components for this infrastructure: so-called edge cloud nodes. These highly secure and automatically networked modules are operated decentrally in the respective operating environment - for example at power generation plants such as wind turbines, where this is particularly energy-efficient. Ultimately, various operating sites on land, at sea or even mobile - in relocatable containers - are conceivable. When connected to other edge cloud nodes, large computing networks are created. This provides the basis for the exchange and processing of large amounts of data at potentially low operating costs and distributed data processing that is more responsive to local conditions, bandwidths, failure scenarios and resilience. Networking is either wired or via mobile communications, with the future 6G standard.

ORGANISATIONS FROM TWELVE EU MEMBER STATES ARE INVOLVED IN 8RA.

"When it comes to edge cloud nodes, it will be important that the solutions are easy to implement, scalable and interoperable," says Dr Kai Martius, Chief Technology Officer at secunet. "We will develop such solutions as part of the 8ra project and then expand them into mature, industrially manufacturable products."

Security and open source

Cybersecurity plays a central role in the project - home territory for secunet with its decades of expertise in this area. "The 8ra continuum is intended for use in critical infrastructures, among other things, and should therefore be able to process particularly sensitive data," says Elisabeth Rieger. "That's why the nodes will use sophisticated cryptography and advanced virtualisation."

Another crucial point is the reliance on open source technology. This is because the use of open standards and generally accessible software modules guarantees verifiability and transparency - criteria that should be met by any cloud offering that is committed to true digital sovereignty. "Another typical advantage of open software is that it is further developed in the community across all manufacturers," says Rieger. "We will therefore subsequently make the results of our project work available to the general public, as is usual with open source."

Hot phase of cloudification

The project comes at a time when the cloud transformation has picked up speed once again: After companies and private individuals have been increasingly using cloud solutions for many years, public authorities and companies with special security requirements that were previously excluded from this development are currently following suit. For them, the cloud must meet significantly higher security and data protection standards, and the aspect of digital sovereignty is also more relevant. This is why secunet is constantly expanding its sovereign public cloud offering with edge and security services together with its wholly-owned subsidiary SysEleven. Kai Martius: "As a citizen, I can perhaps live with the fact that a non-European company potentially has access to my holiday photos. However, public authorities or companies that provide important services for society should never have to live with such data protection risks. That is why we at secunet are committed to a sovereign and highly secure European cloud infrastructure. Our developments for the edge-to-cloud continuum will complement this portfolio perfectly."

The 8ra project is already in full swing and will run until the end of 2026. The time frame shows that sophisticated technology is being developed, and it won't happen overnight. Nevertheless, a date within sight was chosen for the end of the project. After all, there is not much time to lose in the endeavour to free Europe from technological dependencies.