CloudSkin Impact
CloudSkin is set to make a substantial contribution to Europe’s scientific, economic, and societal landscape. The project is committed to advancing cutting-edge research and innovation in cloud-edge continuum computing, pushing beyond the current state of the art and strengthening Europe’s technological capabilities, scientific leadership, and societal resilience.
Scientific Impact
CloudSkin is advancing the scientific state-of-the-art in cloud-edge continuum computing by a cognitive, AI-driven orchestration and execution architecture across heterogeneous infrastructure. The key contribution is the realization of a cognitive computing continuum across heterogeneous cloud–edge environments including the following main innovations:
- A novel Learning Plane: Uses AI and statistical decision making to dynamically manage and adapt resources allowing to optimize workloads, resources, energy, and network traffic in a “holistic” manner.
- A Universal Execution Abstraction: Enables “stack identicality” across the continuum leveraging WebAssembly (Wasm) and Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) for near-native performance.
- An Instrumented Storage Infrastructure: Provides real-time performance, adaptive data-tiering, and improved fault-tolerance driven by the Learning Plane.
Promoting Open Knowledge: CloudSkin is dedicated to open science, ensuring public access to its cloud-edge continuum platform and research outcomes.
Economic Impact
CloudSkin’s technological innovations are poised to contribute to new economic opportunities by enabling flexible, efficient, and scalable cloud-edge deployments.
A core economic contribution is cost and efficiency optimization. The platform supports smarter workload placement and migration decisions, reducing operational complexity and improving resource utilization. This lowers operational costs and increases the value of edge infrastructures in industries such as video analytics, IoT, agriculture, metabolomics, and surgery.
CloudSkin also fuels economic value through open-source strategies. The software releases and platform artefacts cultivate ecosystem growth, fostering new business models and enabling SMEs and startups to build on reusable components, accelerating time-to-market and lowering vendor lock-in risks.
Societal Impact
CloudSkin is aligned with priority agendas such as the digital transition, AI-enabled infrastructures, and the growth of data-driven services. By integrating confidential computing and privacy-preserving execution, CloudSkin helps organizations handle sensitive data more safely, supporting higher public trust.
The project contributes to more responsive edge-enabled systems in high-impact domains:
- Healthcare: Secure streaming and AI support for computer-assisted surgery.
- Agriculture: Environmental data sharing via data-space mechanisms improving reliability.
- Connectivity: AI-assisted orchestration aligned with 5G/6G evolution.
By promoting open science and reproducible engineering practices, CloudSkin supports skills development and broader societal benefits beyond the project’s immediate scope.
