SMART NEtworks and ServiceS for 2030 (SMARTNESS)
Abstract
The SMARTNESS Engineering Research Center (ERC) targets developing cutting-edge advances in communication networks and digital application services scoped in strategic areas where significant scientific and technological impacts can be achieved towards 2030, in collaboration with the cloud and networking research communities. As 5G releases roll-out and the vision on 6G is being developed, SMARTNESS’s main challenge is how to engineer (i.e., design and operate) cloud computing and network infrastructures with the adequate capabilities to empower next-generation Internet services and applications. The scope of end-to-end Internet-scale services is exceptionally broad and requires contributions from various disciplines along with large capital and human resource investments. However, the ongoing digital transformation in vertical industries and a shift towards open source network softwarization and disaggregation of infrastructures at multiple levels and protocol stack layers have opened well-scoped opportunities for accelerated innovation at unprecedented entry barriers for research enterprises based on academic and industrial partnerships. Cloud computing and network infrastructures are increasingly becoming more multidisciplinary, requiring system-oriented end-to-end views that leverage advances in hardware (HW) for computing and networking, modern software (SW) architectures, machine intelligence (AI/ML), user interfaces, “as a Service” consumption and new business models, among other engineering disciplines (e.g., energy efficiency and design for security). SMARTNESS aims at exploiting well-thought-out opportunities through a proper methodology based on the confluence of parallel research strands (RS) tailored for successful impact research and innovation at world-class levels towards the realization of challenging use cases in Internet scenarios for industry and society with a 2030 horizon view. (AU)