Call: Marketplace for federated cloud-to-edge based services

The general objectives of the Digital Europe Programme shall be to support and accelerate the digital transformation of the European economy, industry and society, to bring its benefits to citizens, public administrations and businesses across the Union, and to improve the competitiveness of Europe in the global digital economy while contributing to bridging the digital divide across the Union and reinforcing the Union’s strategic autonomy, through holistic, cross-sectoral and cross-border support and a stronger Union contribution.

The Programme shall be implemented in close coordination with other Union programmes as applicable, and shall aim:

1. to strengthen and promote Europe’s capacities in key digital technology areas through large-scale deployment;
2. in the private sector and in areas of public interest, to widen the diffusion and uptake of Europe’s key digital technologies, promoting the digital transformation and access to digital technologies.

It will reinforce EU critical digital capacities by focusing on the key areas of artificial intelligence (AI), cybersecurity, advanced computing, data infrastructure, governance and processing, the deployment of these technologies and their best use for critical sectors like energy, climate change and environment, manufacturing, agriculture and health. Thus, the Programme shall have five interrelated specific objectives:

1. Specific Objective 1 – High Performance Computing
2. Specific Objective 2 – Artificial Intelligence
3. Specific Objective 3 – Cybersecurity and Trust
4. Specific Objective 4 – Advanced Digital Skills
5. Specific Objective 5 Deployment and Best Use of Digital Capacity and Interoperability.

The Digital Europe Programme is strategic in supporting the digital transformation of the EU industrial ecosystems targeting upskilling to provide a workforce for these advanced digital technologies. It supports industry, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and public administration in their digital transformation with a reinforced network of European Digital Innovation Hubs (EDIH). The Programme will accelerate the economic recovery and drive the digital transformation of Europe.

Specific Objective 1- High Performance Computing

The financial contribution from the Union under Specific Objective 1 – High Performance Computing shall pursue the following operational objectives:

1. deploy, coordinate at Union level and operate an integrated demand-oriented and application-driven world-class exascale supercomputing and data infrastructure that shall be easily accessible to public and private users, in particular SMEs, irrespective of the Member State in which they are located, and easily accessible for research purposes, in accordance with Regulation (EU) 2018/1488;
2. deploy ready to use operational technology resulting from research and innovation in order to build an integrated Union HPC ecosystem, covering various aspects in the scientific and industrial value chain segments, including hardware, software, applications, services, interconnections and digital skills, with a high level of security and data protection;
3. deploy and operate post-exascale infrastructure, including integration with quantum computing technologies and research infrastructures for computing science and encourage the development within the Union of the hardware and software necessary for such deployment.

Specific Objective 2 – Artificial Intelligence

The financial contribution from the Union under Specific Objective 2 – Artificial Intelligence shall pursue the following operational objectives:

1. build up and strengthen core AI capacities and knowledge in the Union, including building up and strengthening quality data resources and corresponding exchange mechanisms, and libraries of algorithms, while guaranteeing a human-centric and inclusive approach that respects Union values;
2. make the capacities referred to in point (a) accessible to businesses, especially SMEs and start-ups, as well as civil society, not-for-profit organisations, research institutions, universities and public administrations, in order to maximise their benefit to the European society and economy;
3. reinforce and network AI testing and experimentation facilities in Member States;
4. develop and reinforce commercial application and production systems in order to facilitate the integration of technologies in value chains and the development of innovative business models and to shorten the time required to pass from innovation to commercial exploitation and foster the uptake of AI-based solutions in areas of public interest and in society.

Specific Objective 3 – Cybersecurity and Trust

The financial contribution from the Union under Specific Objective 3 – Cybersecurity and Trust shall pursue the following operational objectives:

1. support the building-up and procurement of advanced cybersecurity equipment, tools and data infrastructures, together with Member States, in order to achieve a high common level of cybersecurity at European level, in full compliance with data protection legislation and fundamental rights, while ensuring the strategic autonomy of the Union;
2. support the building-up and best use of European knowledge, capacity and skills related to cybersecurity and the sharing and mainstreaming of best practices;
3. ensure a wide deployment of effective state-of-the-art cybersecurity solutions across the European economy, paying special attention to public authorities and SMEs;
4. reinforce capabilities within Member States and private sector to help them comply with Directive (EU) 2016/1148 of the European Parliament and of the Council including through measures supporting the uptake of cybersecurity best practices;
5. improve resilience against cyberattacks, contribute towards increasing risk-awareness and knowledge of cybersecurity processes, support public and private organisations in achieving basics levels of cybersecurity, for example by deploying end-to-end encryption of data and software updates;
6. enhance cooperation between the civil and defence spheres with regard to dual-use projects, services, competences and applications in cybersecurity, in accordance with a Regulation establishing the European Cybersecurity Industrial, Technology and Research Competence Centre and the Network of National Coordination Centres (the ‘Cybersecurity Competence Centre Regulation’).

Specific Objective 4 – Advanced Digital Skills

The financial contribution from the Union under Specific Objective 4 – Advanced Digital Skills shall support the development of advanced digital skills in areas covered by the Programme in order to contribute to increasing Europe’s talent pool, bridge the digital divide and foster greater professionalism, especially with regard to high performance and cloud computing, big data analytics, cybersecurity, distributed ledger technologies (e.g. blockchain), quantum technologies, robotics, AI, while taking gender balance into account. In order to tackle skills mismatches and to encourage specialisation in digital technologies and applications, the financial contribution shall pursue the following operational objectives:

1. support the design and delivery of high-quality, long-term training and courses, including blended learning, for students and for the workforce;
2. support the design and delivery of high-quality, short-term training and courses for the workforce, in particular in SMEs and in the public sector;
3. support high-quality on-the-job training and work placements for students, including traineeships, and the workforce, in particular in SMEs and in the public sector.

Specific Objective 5 – Deployment and Best Use of Digital Capacities and Interoperability

The financial contribution from the Union under Specific Objective 5 – Deployment and Best Use of Digital Capacities and Interoperability shall pursue the following operational objectives while bridging the digital divide:

1. support the public sector and areas of public interest, such as health and care, education, judiciary, customs, transport, mobility, energy, environment, cultural and creative sectors, including relevant businesses established within the Union, to effectively deploy and access state-of-the-art digital technologies, such as HPC, AI and cybersecurity;
2. deploy, operate and maintain trans-European interoperable state-of-the-art digital service infrastructures across the Union, including related services, in complementarity with national and regional actions;
3. support the integration and use of trans-European digital service infrastructures and of agreed European digital standards in the public sector and in areas of public interest to facilitate cost-efficient implementation and interoperability;
4. facilitate the development, update and use of solutions and frameworks by public administrations, businesses and citizens, including of open-source solutions and the re-use of interoperability solutions and frameworks;
5. offer the public sector and the Union industry, in particular SMEs, easy access to testing and piloting of digital technologies and increase the use thereof, including their cross-border use;
6. support the uptake by the public sector and the Union industry, in particular SMEs and start-ups, of advanced digital and related technologies, including in particular HPC, AI, cybersecurity, other leading edge and future technologies, such as distributed ledger technologies (e.g. blockchain);
7. support the design, testing, implementation, and deployment and maintenance of interoperable digital solutions, including digital government solutions, for public services at Union level which are delivered through a data-driven reusable solutions platform aiming to foster innovation and establish common frameworks in order to unleash the full potential of the public administrations’ services for citizens and businesses;
8. ensure the continuous capacity at Union level to lead digital development, in addition to observing, analysing and adapting to fast-evolving digital trends, and share and mainstream best practices;
9. support cooperation towards achieving a European ecosystem for trusted data sharing and digital infrastructures using, inter alia, services and applications based on distributed ledger technologies (e.g. blockchain), including support for interoperability and standardisation and by fostering the deployment of Union cross-border applications based on security and privacy by design, while complying with consumer and data protection legislation;
10. build up and strengthen the European Digital Innovation Hubs and their network.

Objective:

The objective is to deploy and operate an EU online marketplace for cloud and edge services. The marketplace should be the single point of access for trusted services, notably cloud and edge services, building blocks deployed under the Common Services Platform and more generally any software and data processing services developed under EU programmes such as the Digital Europe Programme, Horizon 2020 or Horizon Europe. It should as well complement the AI-on-demand platform, in providing access to the necessary cloud services. By facilitating access to these services for crucial EU sectors, the catalogue of curated services, i.e. of services that comply with EU rules and requirements, will improve the EU’s open strategic autonomy. This will ensure that the digital transformation of the economy is undertaken on the basis of secure, fair, inclusive and resource-efficient infrastructures and services.

As a minimum, the EU online marketplace will provide a brokerage for the transaction and delivery of cloud infrastructures and services offered by entities from the public sector. Over time, it should become a critical resource for supplying cloud-to-edge services to the public sector, services of general interest and, where applicable, the private sector. As such, the call described in this section will be restricted according to the basis of article 12(6) of the Digital Europe Programme Regulation.

The marketplace itself should become self-sustainable financially and operationally by the end of this first grant. It should therefore be revenue-driven, wherever necessary. Its implementation, supervision of transparency and fair rules of operation and long-term sustainability should be guaranteed and governed by a broad range of relevant stakeholders (cloud service providers, cloud users, regulators, the public sector and civil society) who would for example, implement the principles included in the upcoming EU Cloud Rulebook. Ahead of the call, the Commission will consult relevant stakeholders in order to identify the appropriate governance.

Scope:

The chosen project shall:

• Define clear rules for the open, fair and transparent functioning of the marketplace, including how these would be guaranteed in the long term through an appropriate governance structure;
• Deploy the technical infrastructure of the marketplace platform, with strong customer focus, user-friendliness, and inclusion and equality principles;
• Ensure that the marketplace is built over the cloud-to-edge middleware platform;
• Operate the platform according to security, energy and resource efficiency, data protection, ethical standards and portability requirements;
• Ensure the integration of state-of-the-art identity and access management services on the marketplace platform to support its operations;
• Design a curation/vetting process for services offered on the marketplace, notably for sector-specific services in regulated sectors (e.g. health, energy, finance…); these services should, inter alia, include the cloud-to-edge services and middleware, the Artificial Intelligence tools, as well as building blocks deployed under the Common Services Platform.
• Where other marketplaces exist, such as marketplaces already developed in some Member States or services platforms addressing specific areas, this marketplace will put in place the required mechanisms to offer a seamless and integrated end-user experience.
• Adopt the appropriate governance to ensure the proper supervision of the marketplace by all relevant stakeholders, fostering interconnections with similar marketplaces and service catalogues that exist in some Member States;
• Enable access on such platforms, through a single EU portal for cloud users, to an online catalogue of existing cloud-to-edge based service offerings (such as predictive analytics, data visualisation, edge services, Artificial Intelligence services and language technology services ...) that are compliant with a pre-defined set of EU rules and requirements (to be compiled in the EU Cloud Rulebook);
• Implement a service brokerage functionality to enable transactions between providers and users to take place on the marketplace;
• Ensure a vendor-neutral technical architecture and reference framework;
• Develop an agile and future-proof revenue model to cement long-term commercial viability of the EU online marketplace, while ensuring unbiased competition and strict vendor neutrality in the positioning of services on the marketplace; and, (If necessary), ensure the integration of trusted payment services on the marketplace platform to facilitate transactions;
• Report regularly (at least once per month) to the Commission throughout the deployment phase of the project.

Where possible, open source software should be used for the development of the marketplace, notably to demonstrate transparency, vendor- independence and neutrality in the offering of services on the platform.

In order to foster common building blocks, the project supported under this action will liaise with those supported by the Data Spaces Support Centre in the areas of data spaces, pool data provision, demand for the cloud, the promotion of competitive and seamless access and use of cloud infrastructures and services.

Expected Outcome:

• Strengthen the competitiveness and the innovation of the European economy and of Common Data Spaces in the green digital age.
• Improve availability of highly trustworthy, curated cloud and edge services that serve the interests of crucial sectors dealing with sensitive data, such as the public sector.
• Increase cloud-to-edge services uptake among public entities and private sectors that lag behind in cloud adoption, such as the European health sector.

• be legal entities (public or private bodies)
• be established in one of the eligible countries, i.e.:
  • EU Member States (including overseas countries and territories (OCTs))

• Natural persons are NOT eligible (with the exception of self-employed persons, i.e. sole traders, where the company does not have legal personality separate from that of the natural person).
• International organisations are NOT eligible, unless they are International organisations of European Interest within the meaning of Article 2 of the Digital Europe Regulation (i.e. international organisations the majority of whose members are Member States or whose headquarters are in a Member State).
• EU bodies (with the exception of the European Commission Joint Research Centre) can NOT be part of the consortium.

• a consortium of at least 3 applicants (beneficiaries; not affiliated entities) and which complies with the following conditions:
  • minimum 3 independent entities from 3 different eligible countries

• Application Form Part A — contains administrative information about the participants  and the summarised budget for the project (to be filled in directly online)
• Application Form Part B — contains the technical description of the project (to be downloaded from the Portal Submission System, completed and then assembled and re-uploaded)
• mandatory annexes and supporting documents (to be uploaded):
  • list of previous projects (key projects for the last 4 years)
  • ethics issues table
  • ecurity issues table
  • ownership control declaration