An effective platform for the cognitive cloud-edge continuum must address a number of unsolved challenges, many of them derived from constrained resource devices, infrastructure heterogeneity, and the need to meet criteria such as performance, resilience, security, data sovereignty, and energy efficiency. A disaggregated architecture is required, making use of AI, automation, and portability to manage and adapt resources and workloads, and to respond in real time to possible incidents and security threats. Edge application developers willing to speed up computation, save energy, and cut costs will need a way to combine their edge devices with the many resources available across the cloud-edge continuum. This innovative approach requires computationally-intensive data processing functions to be easily executed outside edge devices, sensors, and actuators. It is with that vision in mind that this project proposes a new distributed Function-as-a-Service (FaaS) paradigm for edge application management and smart orchestration, which will change how applications and services are deployed and executed in the cloud-edge continuum. Our AI-enabled adaptive serverless framework will provide applications with secure and portable access to a continuous data processing environment that abstracts the large-scale, geo-distributed, and low-latency capabilities provided by the cloud-edge continuum. The Consortium combines innovative open source companies in Europe, high-impact research organizations, and several edge application providers. Our research will be validated in relevant application domains, and will establish an ecosystem with links to industrial initiatives. This project will be transformative for the emerging EU edge ecosystem, providing resources and knowledge for start-ups, SMEs, and industry leaders seeking to look beyond centralized platforms and hyperscalers. It will increase European autonomy not only in data processing but also in strategic edge technologies.

O-CEI overarching goal is to pilot the imperative of accelerating the uptake and upscaling of innovative Cloud-Edge-IoT solutions, strengthening Europe’s competitiveness and open strategic autonomy by orchestrating cross-domain data sharing, minimising energy footprint, stimulating multi-sided marketplaces, and promoting open standards for virtualisation and interoperability. For doing so, O-CEI will feed with such innovative technologies, and a comprehensive framework, to eight multidimensional real-world pilots framed in key strategic sectors: electricity grid, electromobility, software-defined vehicles, agrifood and agriculture, logistics and urban environments. It will swiftly create and implement innovative solutions across the cloud continuum; and effectively address the needs of existing and emerging individual and cross-sector business value chains. By designing blueprints and providing utilities beyond the SotA, O-CEI will help project stakeholders (and 32 Open Call awardees) to achieve challenging objectives. All pilots are formed by technical and stakeholder actors covering the necessary value chains, having an outstanding cross-domain unifying thread: energy flexibility.