IMPORTANT PROJECT OF COMMON EUROPEAN INTEREST (IPCEI) ON NEXT GENERATION CLOUD INFRASTRACTURE AND SERVICE (CIS): 

Cybersecurity and AI at The Edge

Our societies are seeing an unprecedented growth of data, in large part accelerated by the availability of cloud computing facilities combined with the revamping of AI that makes heavy use of available data and produces even more. The availability of substantial compute power from a limited number of cloud service providers falls short in meeting the diverse and extensive computing demands imposed by digital services across industry and society. This inadequacy prompts a call for the integration of diverse computing paradigms within the cloud edge continuum to address the limitations of available applications and services provisioned by few cloud service providers in isolation. 

The goal of the IPCEI-CIS 8RA is to create a “Multi-Provider Cloud-Edge Continuum” without being tied to a single provider. The “Multi-Provider Cloud-Edge Continuum” represents a seamless integration of cloud and edge computing. Resources and applications are moved both to the cloud and to the edge of the network. Such a dynamic approach optimizes performance, reduces latency and enhances efficiency by processing data close to the source when necessary while still leveraging the scalability and computational power of the Cloud.

By dynamically balancing workloads between cloud and edge environments, this approach supports a wide range of use cases, including Smart Industry and Smart Cities.

The Cybersecurity & AI at the Edge project addresses the EU objectives promoted in the Green Deal and Cybersecurity strategies by innovating the multi-provider cloud-edge continuum in two main directions. 

• First, it aims to bring AI at the edge, by providing scalability and resource efficiency through the development of cooperative, distributed AI algorithms, optimising data, energy, and processing resources while adapting to the different computational environments and capabilities. 

• Second, the project emphasises the creation of security, privacy-enhancing, and trust-aware services to ensure resilience and compliance in distributed AI-enabled applications.

The success of a multi-provider cloud-edge continuum depends on seamlessly integrating AI service capabilities with the underlying infrastructure while fully leveraging its distributed and dynamic properties. To achieve this, cybersecurity and data processing algorithms must be designed to operate in a distributed manner, ensuring that tasks are effectively shared across the continuum to optimize performance and minimize latency. These algorithms should also be cooperative, enabling seamless interaction and coordination among diverse providers, devices, and nodes to enhance resilience, scalability, and functionality. Additionally, they must be resource-efficient, making optimal use of available processing power, storage, communication bandwidth, and energy across the infrastructure. This approach not only ensures compliance with the continuum's architectural requirements but also enables secure, efficient, and scalable data processing that aligns with the demands of modern, interconnected systems.