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TransContinuum Initiative

The transContinuum Initiative, or TCI, is developing a vision of the characteristic of the infrastructure required for the convergence of data and compute capabilities in many leading edge industrial and scientific use scenarios. A paradigm change is needed: we will have to design systems encompassing millions of compute devices distributed over scientific instruments, IoT, supercomputers and Cloud systems through LAN, WLAN and 5G networks.

The ambition of TCI is also to become a meeting place of experts representing various disciplines in both science and industry – an asset that Europe can apply in the resolution of its other challenges such as healthcare, climate change or smart cities.

Publications

12/2020, TCI PARTNERS - TransContinuum Initiative: Our Vision (download file)

Mission & Objectives

The Transcontinuum Initiative will focus on collaboration towards the following five objectives:

Identify priorities and recommendation for European R&I work programs

Jointly we will elaborate recommendations for R&D to be carried out in EU- or JU-funded work programs addressing challenges in the digital continuum. The recommendations will cover challenges in technological (hardware and software) functionality, interoperability, and APIs. New standards, best practices, methodologies and project-type related suggestions will also be generated. Applications deployed in the digital continuum are addressed wherever needed.

Engage in discussions with European R&I funding agencies and R&D programs (e.g. JUs, Missions)

The recommendations will be presented to EU-funding entities like Joint Undertakings (JUs) and applicable programs in the MFF 2021-2027. TCI representatives will be available for presenting and explaining the recommendations as well to discuss any possible further analysis and elaborations.

Generate and foster an interdisciplinary network of experts in science and industry

We look forward to a lively exchange of ideas about EC work programs, calls and related events, events of partner organisations and potentially joint activities. We will jointly analyse new industrial and scientific use cases to better understand the challenges presented, together with an identification of “weak signals” for preparing the future. On one side this is a pre-requisite for any R&I recommendations, on the other side it facilitates the forming of interdisciplinary consortia for upcoming calls. We would like to include recognised experts from industrial stakeholders in this process. Through this network, we also intend to promote skills that can be applied in both making use of the assets of the continuum and building extreme-scale applications on top of the continuum, targeting various audiences.

Contribute to SR(I)As and other partners’ documents

Based on the results of the joint work mentioned above, contributions to the Research and Innovation Agendas or any other road mapping documents issued by participating partners will be offered. These contributions will focus on the interdisciplinary technical aspects and extend the concept of co-design to cover the entire continuum.

Contribute to the 5 Horizon Europe missions

One of the first pragmatic actions will be to design the contribution of the Digital Twin enabler to the Horizon Europe missions (adaptation to climate change including societal transformation, cancer, healthy oceans, seas coastal and inland waters, climate-neutral and smart cities, soil health and food.) These missions will need digital technologies to achieve their respective goals and Digital Twins should be one of the key elements.