Future Internet

Objective: Support the (r-)evolution of the Internet, addressing both long-term and medium-term research & innovation goals.

New paradigms and technologies for three synergic areas:
(i) Next Generation Internet (NGI),
(ii) Distributed, Parallel - High Performance Computing (HPC),
(iii) Software Engineering (SW).
NGI, HPC and SW are key enabling elements for the new Internet e.g. for IoT systems and applications

Objectives are well aligned with reference research programmes, most notably FP9 “Horizon Europe”.
Approach: we exploit synergy, complementarity and specialization.

Integration between NGI and HPC provides complex global platforms and systems with high performance communication and distributed computing (e.g., for distributed data analytics), that need new and sounding SW engineering principles and techniques. This addresses the emerging vision of the Future Internet as a global platform for integrated networking & computing.

Specialization includes: (i) mobile communication technologies for 5G and Internet measurements; (ii) novel NGI network paradigms; (iii) IoT for industrial Internet in the NGI area; (i) virtualization and cloud computing, (ii) edge computing and (iii) heterogeneous parallel computing in the HPC area; (i) formal methods, (ii) end-user SW development, (iii) agent-based systems; (iv) testing, monitoring, modelling and verification techniques for the SW area.
Scientific Impact/Results: Results will impact on the international research in all the three areas.

The NGI area will impact with novel technologies for 5G networks, and novel networking paradigms. Special impact is expected in the Industrial Internet. The HPC area will impact with novel cloud/HPC architectures and technologies, including mobile devices at the edge of the network. The SW area will impact with novel methodologies for software modelling, design, monitoring and verification.
Joint effort will further strengthen these impacts, as it is already the case for the IoT area.

The PA is already mobilising 56.24 FTEs across 10 Institutes, with funded project amounting to around 6.6 MEuro.