The telecom sector continues its transition towards virtualizing infrastructure. The digitalization of assets and their commercialization in a marketplace is expected to play a central role in 6G networks.

In industrial environments, cloud services and the Internet of Things (IoT) converge, with the need to manage complex and diverse computing environments for service and infrastructure providers, a process called cloud continuum.

The COVID-19 pandemic is an example of a temporary situation when critical infrastructure (CI) operators had to operate with continuously changing conditions. The role of cyber infrastructure during pandemics, for example for the remote work or access to critical systems, has also changed.

The upcoming sixth-generation (6G) networks are expected to be more heterogeneous, scalable, reliable, secure and energy-efficient.

Telecommunication networks are undergoing a significant shift from closed and proprietary systems towards open and interoperable networks. This transition allows for greater flexibility and reduced dependence on single providers.

"Risk and resilience are interconnected concepts. In fact, one of our goals in SUNRISE is to integrate resilience metrics with risk metrics.

The CROSSCON is a research project that targets developing research ideas into practical techniques and supporting prototypes, and the level of ambition is to validate results in lab conditions that are representative of a complex IoT system (i.e., technology readiness levels TRL 4 and TRL5).

The full deployment of sixth-generation (6G) networks is inextricably connected with a holistic network redesign able to deal with various emerging challenges, such as integration of heterogeneous technologies and devices, as well as support of latency and bandwidth demanding applications.