On 18 November 2025, the 8ra Initiative contributed key insights on cloud-edge interoperability and sovereign AI during the Berlin summit hosted by Chancellor Merz and President Macron.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron brought Europe’s political, scientific and industrial leadership to Berlin for a high-stakes Summit on European Digital Sovereignty, a meeting focused squarely on the continent’s technological independence.
Debates centred on how Europe can reduce its reliance on non-European cloud providers and strengthen the alignment between AI and cloud capabilities. Open-source collaboration emerged as a crucial lever for transparency and reduced vendor lock-in, supported by calls for stronger cross-border coordination and governance frameworks.
For the 8ra Initiative, these priorities mirror the core principles driving our work: building a resilient, interoperable and open Multi-Provider Cloud-Edge Continuum to reinforce Europe’s digital sovereignty and enable businesses to innovate at scale.
Across two dedicated side events, the Initiative demonstrated how these principles are being put into practice.
Open, innovative and sovereign – The future of the cloud-edge continuum
At the side event “Advancing the Cloud Edge Continuum with Open Source”, members of the 8ra Initiative outlined how open-source development can strengthen Europe’s cloud-edge landscape. The discussion highlighted multiple perspectives on cloud sovereignty, from architectural principles to practical implementation.
Insights from the ApeiroRA project demonstrated how a Multi-Provider Cloud-Edge Continuum can be realised by combining shared principles with existing platforms and resources. This was complemented by a data-centre perspective showing how a vendor-agnostic software stack can support a flexible and scalable European cloud infrastructure. Meanwhile, demanding use cases from the EdgeConnect project illustrated the central role of federating cloud resources to achieve resilience and interoperability.
These achievements now have an organisational home within the NeoNephos Foundation, which provides a transparent, collaborative and extensible framework aligned with EU priorities for interoperability and digital sovereignty.
How can Europe ensure its digital sovereignty in AI?
The “First International Workshop on Pretraining and Posttraining of Open-Source Sovereign Foundation Models” continued the summit’s momentum, bringing together leading researchers and industry practitioners to address Europe’s strategic challenges in AI.
Participants converged around a shared objective: advancing resilient, sovereign AI systems through open-source foundation models. Approaches from Germany, Sweden and Switzerland provided a comparative view of Europe’s AI landscape. A key outcome was a joint declaration signed by prominent European open-source AI groups, startups and projects, committing to build “a sovereign, trustworthy and human-centred AI ecosystem that connects excellence in research with industrial deployment and public impact – combining open innovation with economic strength and societal value.”
For the 8ra Initiative, these developments reinforce the importance of enabling federated AI training within the Multi-Provider Cloud-Edge Continuum. The newly announced SOOFI project and the planned integration of IPCEI-AI represent pivotal steps towards this objective.
On the road to digital sovereignty
The summit underscored Europe’s determination to strengthen its digital resilience and competitiveness. By driving the development of an open, interoperable and trustworthy cloud and AI infrastructure, the 8ra Initiative stands as a central contributor to Europe’s long-term digital sovereignty.