The O-CEI Project, funded under the HORIZON-CL4-2024-DATA-01-03 Programme, kicked off on 15-16 January in Valencia(Technical University of Valencia) where consortium members gathered to exchange views and set their expectations for the project.
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 multisided marketplaces, and promoting open standards for virtualisation and interoperability. ERTICO-ITS Europe is coordinating the development of the mobility sector solution and leading the pilot sites.
“The CEI project aims to speed up the adoption and scaling of Cloud-Edge-IoT solutions to boost Europe’s competitiveness and strategic autonomy by promoting cross-domain data sharing, energy efficiency, and open standards in the transport&logistics domains,” said Dr Eusebiu Catana, the mobility coordinator solution and Head of Transport for Logistics at ERTICO.
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 sand ectors: from logistics and urban environments, software-defined vehicles to electromobility. 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.
“The transition to Software-Defined Vehicles (SDVs) is pivotal in fostering a data-driven ecosystem that enhances urban mobility, driving smarter, more efficient transportation systems. By leveraging SDVs, O-CEI can create a seamless flow of data that not only optimizes vehicle performance but also integrates urban infrastructure for a more connected city experience. This transition will promote commercial scalability and accelerate OEM adoption, empowering industry leaders to adopt these innovations at scale, ensuring a future of sustainable and intelligent mobility solutions,” continued Dr Catana.
O-CEI aims at establishing the digital backbone to allow key strategic sectors supply chain actors across Europe to find, test, validate and exploit innovative CEI technologies in a multidimensional large scale pilots, with a unifying thread built around energy flexibility. Massive uptake of the proposed technology will pave the way for a more sustainable and resilient CEI ecosystem, fostering a smoother transition towards a cleaner energy future. Real-time, decentralized monitoring and information processing is as needed as ever in every strategic sector to become flexible in terms of energy usage and consumption. Moreover, as TSOs have expressed that achieving flexibility in the energy market may quickly overburden computing infrastructures. Hence, the concept of the computing continuum as a single manageable entity, breaking the silos of edge and cloud computing has gained momentum.
“The CEI project focuses on establishing a digital backbone that supports the transition to Software-Defined Vehicles (SDVs) by enabling real-time, decentralised monitoring and flexible energy usage. This innovation in SDVs, integrated with the broader computing continuum, ensures a more resilient and sustainable ecosystem, facilitating smoother energy management and consumption across automotive and transport sectors,” concluded Dr Catana.
Facts and figures about O-CEI:
- Duration: 42 months
- Starting date: 1 January 2025
- End date: 30 June 2028
- Number of partners: 61
ERTICO members involved: CERTH, Continental, EDF
