Strengthening Europe’s Cloud-Edge Future
From 27 – 28 March 2025, the 8ra community convened in Gdańsk, Poland, for the General Assembly of the 8ra Initiative under the Polish presidency of the Council of the European Union. Hosted at the Gdańsk University of Technology, the event brought together representatives from all IPCEI-CIS-funded projects, participating EU Member States, national coordinators, and supporting bodies such as CISERO.
A Collective Call for Acceleration
Throughout the two-day programme, one message was clear:
Europe must move faster and work together
to secure its digital future.
There was broad support for the call to action to scale up efforts in delivering a federated infrastructure that can meet strategic needs across public and private sectors.
This includes translating research and technical innovation into concrete business models and cross-border services that support long-term economic and technological sovereignty.
Key Topics and Takeaways
The agenda featured plenary sessions, parallel working group meetings, and live showcases of project progress. Among the central themes discussed:
- Open-source strategies as a foundation for trust, transparency, and collaborative development
- API interplay and cross-project technical harmonisation
- Sustainability by design in infrastructure, operations, and lifecycle planning
- AI Factories as scalable building blocks to expand capacity across the ecosystem
- Onboarding of additional providers to increase diversity and resilience
- The upcoming digital IPCEIs, now entering their design phase and expected to build on the foundations laid by IPCEI-CIS
- Policy alignment with the evolving EU Cloud and AI Development Act, including discussions on a unified
The European Commission provided strategic updates, including a preview of the AI Continent Action Plan, reaffirming the alignment between 8ra’s technical trajectory and the broader EU digital agenda.
Critically, the 8ra workstreams also identified key architectural gaps across the ecosystem and proposed targeted solutions to address them. This joint technical deep dive led to numerous new agreements for mutual R&D collaboration and joint innovation activities – further reinforcing the shared commitment to move from aligned strategy to joint delivery.
From Discussion to Demonstration
Live demonstrations brought to life the collaborative outcomes of 8ra’s technical workstreams. Participants had the opportunity to explore tangible use cases and prototypes developed within and across projects, showcasing real progress in building a federated, secure, and scalable cloud-edge infrastructure.
The value of face-to-face exchange was also a recurring theme. As one participant noted:
‘Five minutes of discussion here are more effective than 50 e-mails.’
The event underlined the importance of regular, in-person collaboration to maintain momentum and deepen cross-project synergies.
Community, Commitment, and Cooperation
Beyond the working sessions, the General Assembly fostered a strong sense of community. Hosted in the historic city of Gdańsk, the gathering included a gala dinner that offered space for informal exchange and networking. The Polish hosts were widely thanked for their warm welcome and excellent organisation.
The 8ra Initiative extends sincere appreciation to all participants for their contributions and to Poland for hosting an impactful and well-organised event. We’re already looking forward to the next General Assembly which will be kindly hosted by the Netherlands.
As the Initiative moves forward, the outcomes of the General Assembly reinforce a shared commitment to making Europe’s Multi-Provider Cloud-Edge Continuum a reality – together, faster, and at scale.
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