Europe Research Interest Group Meeting [September 2022]

Date: September 08, 2022

Meeting Agenda:

Red Hat’s participation in EU grant projects, part I. (AERO, CHESS) by Foivos Zakkak, Martin Ukrop

Recently, Red Hat has started participating more in research proposals aiming for funding by the European Union. These are international, multi-year, multi-institutional projects on a variety if topics. Currently, Red Hat participates in 8 such projects. In multiple EuropeRIG talks, we will showcase the running and prepared products to broaden the awareness of them and allow more engineers to join.

This month, we’ll be talking about AERO and CHESS.

AERO: Accelerated EuRopean clOud
Several European flagship projects have emerged towards European sovereignty in chip design and computing infrastructure. Among them, the EU Processor Initiative (EPI) spearheads the development of the first EU processor. To ensure the  successful integration of the EU processor into the cloud computing ecosystem and strengthen even more EU data sovereignty, it is necessary to develop the software support at the same pace with the hardware development. The harmonic relationship of the developed software and hardware is of paramount importance in order to establish an EU cloud platform able to compete with the mainstream solutions which are currently delivered by US companies. AERO aims to upbring and optimize an open-source software ecosystem that encompasses a wide range of software components ranging from operating systems to compilers, runtimes, system software and auxiliary software deployment services for cloud computing. The AERO software stack combines the aforementioned software components with novel software and hardware interfaces as a means to seamlessly exploit the heterogeneity aspects of the EU processor with regards to high performance, energy efficiency, and security. The ultimate objective of AERO is to facilitate easy migration of existing cloud customers to a cloud infrastructure that harnesses the capabilities of the EU processor. To showcase early adoption and the potential business value, the developed software and hardware technologies will be piloted by use cases representative of important EU industrial domains, such as automotive and space exploration.

CHESS: Cyber-security Excellence Hub in Estonia and South Moravia
The proposed Cyber-security Excellence Hub in Estonia and South Moravia (CHESS) will integrate leading cybersecurity institutions and capitalize on the strengths of both regions to address important Europe-wide challenges. South Moravia is a major ICT industry & education powerhouse of the Czech Republic, with a very focused and coherent smart specialization strategy targeting cybersecurity. Estonia is among the most advanced digital societies globally, with exceptional e-government deployment – which, however, makes it vulnerable to various cyber threats. CHESS will directly follow the strategies and roadmaps of the European Cybersecurity Competence Pilots and build on the experience of CHESS partners involved in all four of these pilots, contributing to safe transition of the EU to full-scale digital society. The CHESS Hub will conduct a thorough needs analysis of the two regions and develop a joint cross-border R&I strategy for cybersecurity. The strategy development will be aided by implementation of pilot R&I projects that will reinforce the cross-regional collaboration, engage regional innovation ecosystems and build evidence for future projects. Gaps in skills and expertise identified in the regions will be removed by training and knowledge transfer. Finally, dedicated task forces will ensure sustainability of CHESS by integration with regional, national, and EU-level strategies and funding programmes. To exploit the project outputs, especially the pilot project results, CHESS will aid with market potential assessment and link researchers and innovators with entrepreneurship training and business consultancy services available in the regions. The strategizing, skills-building and pilot R&I will cover the totality of the cybersecurity field, with special attention to 6 Challenge Areas: Internet of Secure Things; Security Certification; Verification of Trustworthy Software; Blockchain; Post-Quantum Cryptography; and Human-centric Aspects of Cybersecurity.

Projects AERO (Grant Agreement No.101092850) and CHESS (Grant Agreement No.101087529) have been funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or European Research Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

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