The International Conference on Engineering, Technology, and Innovation (ICE2025) brought together a diverse group of innovators and researchers from across Europe to discuss the future of digital transformation
Some of the most essential takeaways from ICE2025 include Special Session 14, “Cognitive Computing Continuum”, which showed the joint efforts of seven EU-funded projects managed by the European Health and Digital Executive Agency (HaDEA).
ICE2025 served as a platform to explore how Artificial Intelligence (AI) enables intelligent services across the Cloud-Edge continuum. This rapidly emerging paradigm brings computational power closer to the user, resulting in greater efficiency, responsiveness, and sustainability.
Cognitive Computing Continuum
As cloud computing becomes more important to Europe’s digital landscape, the focus is moving towards a distributed model. In this new paradigm, only 20% of data is expected to be processed in centralised cloud environments. In comparison, the remaining 80% will be handled closer to where data is generated, on edge devices such as sensors, mobile phones, and industrial equipment.
The Cognitive Computing Continuum aims to create a seamless, intelligent system capable of sensing, optimising, and learning from its environment in real-time. AI plays a crucial role in managing these complex environments by dynamically adjusting computational loads and ensuring the efficient deployment of services across cloud, edge, and IoT layers.
From research to real-world impact
The seven projects featured in SS14 were all selected under the 2023 Horizon Europe call focused on intelligence and automation for efficient data processing.
Although each project targets different aspects of the continuum, they share a common goal: to develop scalable, secure, and autonomous infrastructure solutions that will shape Europe’s digital future.
- COGNETS is building a scalable middleware framework to enable autonomous IoT-to-Cloud computing.
- EMPYREAN introduces a hyper-distributed computing model powered by collaborative IoT devices and federated storage.
- ENACT leverages advanced AI, including Graph Neural Networks and Deep Reinforcement Learning, to optimise application deployment across diverse environments.
- HYPERAI focuses on virtual computing nodes operating across cloud, edge, and IoT layers.
- INTEND delivers a suite of software tools that have been tested across five domains, including 5G and robotic AI.
- MYRTUS integrates edge, fog, and cloud platforms to support next-gen Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS).
- SWARMCHESTRATE is advancing decentralised orchestration using blockchain and cryptographic techniques for managing autonomous swarms.
Future directions
After more than 18 months of implementation, the projects have revealed several critical insights.
First, early conceptualisation of resource management strategies is a big part of future success. Whether systems operate as autonomous collectives or dynamic swarms, deployment choices have significant implications on scalability and runtime performance.
EHealth and manufacturing impose strict requirements on where data and services are stored and processed, especially when bound by geographical or legal constraints.
Another common barrier is the lack of open-access, real-world datasets to train AI-driven orchestration models. Without this data, many AI systems remain theoretical and hard to validate in practical settings.
Projects also highlighted the importance of interoperability and standardisation. Open-source modelling frameworks, such as TOSCA, are crucial for sustainable service design, as they facilitate the management of complexity and ensure compatibility across various platforms.
Involvement in standardisation efforts can give EU-funded projects a voice in shaping the digital infrastructure of the future.
Europe’s digital future
ICE2025 and the participation of HaDEA-managed projects show Europe’s commitment to leading in AI and cloud-edge innovation. As the European Commission prepares the Cloud and AI Development Act for 2025, aimed at closing the digital capacity gap with other global powers, such collaborative efforts lay the foundation for a smarter, more resilient digital Europe.
