Collaboration with NSF on fundamental research on new concepts for distributed computing and swarm intelligence (CSA)

ExpectedOutcome:

Proposal results are expected to contribute to the following expected outcomes:

• Support structure for EU-NSF cooperation: networking events, exchange and fellowship programmes, and vision workshops for the academic and industrial computing community, at least one annual EU-US workshop.

Scope:

DG Connect and the relevant entity at US National Science Foundation (NSF) have identified mutual interest in collaborating on longer-term on fundamental research on new concepts for distributed computing and swarm intelligence. Preparing the grounds for cooperation, support is needed in terms of a landscaping analysis of relevant tools and frameworks in this field, with clearly identified mutual benefit, organising brokerage events for matching of on-going work streams in projects, especially linked to but not limited to the topic HE-CL4-2022-DATA-01-03 – Programming tools for decentralised intelligence and swarms, whilst promoting the emergence of open, collaborative programming frameworks and software development tools. Collaboration shall address common needs emerging on managing complexity through high levels of abstraction, in particular related to large numbers of distributed objects, evolving computational capacity at the edge, and on new AI-based concepts leading to self-organised, dynamic, and adaptive management..

Support for this collaboration is envisaged along the following lines:

• Yearly common workshops for exchange of research results organised in close collaboration with the HIPEAC CSA under Horizon Europe Cluster 4 “From Cloud-to-Edge-to-IoT for European Data”.

• Support to the collaboration through support for secretarial services, networking including travel, research exchange and fellowship programmes, promotion and brokerage events.

• NSF would provide supplement of funding to drive joint research and support collaboration.

Due to the current competitive position between world regions, for Europe it is critical here that collaboration should be based on pre-competitive work between research establishments and academic partners in the context of pairs of projects supported by NSF and the EU.