Gitex Europe: EU states work on the open-source "hyper cloud" 8ra

Contents

The variety of terms used in European cloud projects continues to grow. After Gaia-X, which has already been repeatedly declared dead but is still running, and the “important project of common European interest” (IPCEI) for cloud infrastructures and services (CIS), the 8ra initiative, which comes from the same environment, is now trying to step out of the shadow of its predecessors. Ernst Stöckl-Pukall, Head of the Digitalization and Industry 4.0 Division at the Federal Ministry of Economics, described the project as a “federated infrastructure for a new data economy” at the Gitex Europe IT trade fair in Berlin on Wednesday.

Stöckl-Pukall also had a potential use case for 8ra: the project could, in principle, “enable autonomous driving throughout Europe”. This would require economies of scale and a “cloud edge continuum”. The economic department sees this as a seamless integration of central data storage and making computing power available closer to the data sources. This would allow data processing tasks to be distributed dynamically as required. Such a continuum offers both the low latency and real-time processing of edge technology, as well as the scalability and resource diversity of the cloud.

In the transport sector in particular, experts have long been relying on the mass processing of large volumes of data from connected cars and road infrastructure as close as possible to the scene of the action in small, at best portable data centers at the edge of the network. The reasoning behind this is that it is hardly possible to transfer all relevant measured values via the cloud to large, more distant data centers and only evaluate them there. However, the nodes on site could become smarter via the computer clouds through “federated learning”: they would only exchange the extracted know-how, such as new AI training programs.

Hyperscalers not yet on board

In this sense, Stöckl-Pukall also hopes that 8ra has the potential for a European breakthrough in powerful AI models, which serve as the basis for many smart applications. This requires many resources, which are best pooled in a federated, distributed environment. He has nothing against hyperscalers such as AWS, Google or Microsoft, emphasizes the government representative.“But we need alternatives.” Europe should not be dependent on one or two large providers. The paradigm shift at 8ra is now that everyone can get involved and share the infrastructure.

8ra builds directly on the IPCEI-CIS. Twelve EU countries are involved in the funding program, also known as the “Industrial Cloud”, including Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, and Spain in addition to the idea providers Germany and France. The EU Commission released 1.2 billion euros in national subsidies for this in 2023. Within this framework, SAP is leading the development of an open reference architecture for the planned cloud edge infrastructure, whose original abbreviation ORA is pronounced exactly like 8ra. The open-source ORA should be ready by the end of 2027.

According to the Ministry of Economic Affairs, the 8ra initiative acts as an overarching structure to ensure “that the results of the IPCEI-CIS are further developed beyond the program horizon and offer lasting added value”. It is about a long-term framework “that supports the ongoing relevance and acceptance of the results achieved”. In addition, 8ra enables the integration of additional partners and initiatives. In essence, it is a new umbrella brand that, according to Stöckl-Pukall, should also be linked to Gaia-X spin-offs such as Manufacturing X or Catena X. This means that those involved in data rooms do not have to redo everything, but can concentrate on building solutions.

The sky above the cloud

Oliver Nyderle, who is responsible for digital trust and Web3 at Deutsche Telekom, describes the planned reference architecture as a core component. SAP is now driving this forward within the Linux Foundation. One of the first concrete open-source results of the IPCEI-CIS is the recently launched NeoNephos initiative, in which companies such as Deutsche Telekom, SAP and Stackit (Schwarz Digits) are involved under the umbrella of the Linux Foundation. Its goal, which is closely linked to 8ra, is to promote open cloud architectures, digital sovereignty and technologies such as Kubernetes in Europe. ApeiroRA, a technology also developed with IPCEI funding, serves as the tech stack here.

For Nyderle, 8ra is a “hyper-cloud” that spans multiple providers of data storage services in computer clouds. The focus is not on the infrastructure, but on the level of applications, such as data rooms. As this requires connectivity, almost all major European network operators are involved, including Telefónica, Telecom Italia Mobile and Orange. Vodafone is just getting closer to the whole thing.

The providers are contributing resources such as hardware and data lines to – in the same way as data center operators – the expert explained to heise online. In the future, users will be able to use various parameters to describe their workflow requirements, such as latency or data throughput. On the other hand, he will find offers that can be selected according to constants, such as “particularly green data center” or “only uses wind energy”.

Siemens is a fan of 8ra

Larger computing operations could be outsourced to the ecosystem, but the data could be kept in-house, explains Nyderle. In addition to federated working methods, where only the results flow to the outside world, the security of individual data containers could be guaranteed with the help of confidential computing. This gives exclusive control over the encryption keys and also protects data during processing.

(dahe)