Interconnection of backbone networks for cloud federations - Works

The call aims to result in the following key benefits:

a) providing the key data processing infrastructures to support the digital transformation and modernisation of the public sector in Europe;

b) increased competitiveness and resilience of the EU computing industry in line with EU rules on data protection, security, portability and sustainability;

c) technological autonomy in essential digital computing infrastructures to process EU data, in particular through European common dataspaces; the infrastructure will also be an essential enabler for the roll-out of emerging technologies, including AI, IoT, HPC;

d) energy efficiency and sustainable large scale deployment of interconnected cloud-to-edge infrastructures across the EU territory.

Additionally, the expected benefits relate to addressing market failures by allowing cloud providers to act federated simulating the capacity of a cloud hyperscaler. Thus, they will contribute to bringing Digital autonomy to the EU and ensure widespread access to the Gigabit Society for all EU citizens and businesses.

The key performance indicators for the topic are:

• the sum of the bandwidth-distance product of each deployed link (in Gb/s*Km) created between cloud providers;
• the number of data centres of socio-economic drivers, including public-sector, which will be interconnected physically (fibre) or virtually (new software or middleware deployment).

CEF Digital aims to stimulate the commercial offering of cloud services throughout the EU. The cloud capacity will be strengthened and users will have access to multiple computing resources as a result of the projects supported by CEF.

This topic will support the deployment of Gigabit links for the interconnection between Socio-economic drivers that are public administrations or public or private entities entrusted with the operation of SGIs or of SGEIs and backbone networks for cloud federations. Market forces are not providing sufficient answers to the challenge of adequate interconnection with cloud providers. The deployments will take place where existing infrastructure cannot satisfy proper seamless functioning of resources from different providers, and also where there is a lack of the necessary redundancy to guarantee the reliability and resilience of cloud connectivity that can ensure adequate, safe and secure connectivity for the Gigabit society.

This topic will support the deployment of new and significant upgrade of cloud interconnections, for which the market alone will not invest, because such an investment would not be commercially viable, i.e. where no relevant direct link of the same characteristics exists or is planned in the near future.

In addition, for links within Member States, to be eligible for funding under this call, projects must (i) address a market failure which cannot be solved by regulatory measures, (ii) avoid crowding out private investments or unduly distorting competition.

The topic will support the investment costs (studies, works and equipment) related to the development and deployment of cross-border and national cloud infrastructure interconnections at both the physical (i.e. very high capacity networks) and functional levels (i.e. management systems, and software-defined infrastructures) for public administrations or public and private entities entrusted with the operation of services of general interest or of Services of General Economic Interest (SGEIs) across the EU.

The applicants may apply for grants for works, including studies:

• For works, the total project costs required to construct, long-term lease and deliver the described networking solution for the foreseen system lifetime, from end to end, including the on-premises portion.
• Any costs for operating the infrastructure during the lifetime and extra components after the arrival on premises such as cloud resources not necessary to support the links, hosting facilities and other services, after the end of the project, will be excluded under the call.
• For studies, all preparatory work required prior to signing a contract with a supplier is covered under this call. Studies specifically include topographic definition of the links for required permits and rights of way.

The end users will be public administrations or public and private entities entrusted with the operation of SGIs or SGEIs.

All proposals must define the post-project ownership of the infrastructure and describe the mechanism to be used to provide services, including business models. In particular, any arrangements for providing services on a non-discriminatory basis to different clouds, as well as the operational relationship(s) between the different participants in the value chain for providing services should be elaborated in the proposal. They should also provide the necessary security commitments to ensure the continuity of the level of security required during the implementation phase and explain how operators of essential services related to connectivity involved in the cross-border interconnection of national cloud infrastructures address the cybersecurity risks mentioned below.

In this context, proposals under this topic should address these federated cloud-to-edge infrastructures ‘as a product’ and will need to:

1. Cope with the latest digital and sustainability challenges, in particular:

• enabling the industrial and low power processing of large amounts of data including in HPCs and at the edge;
• fostering a swift and sustainable uptake of emerging technologies such as AI applications;
• supporting the operationalisation of data spaces and specific use cases for socio-economic drivers;

1. Respond dynamically to needs of beneficiaries by providing data processing and storage capacities across the EU including at the edge at high speed, with low latency and in an energy and resource efficient manner;
2. Leverage high-performance end-to-end backbone connectivity;
3. Meet EU data protection, security, portability and environmental requirements; and anticipate forthcoming rules pursuant to the legislative work programme of the European Commission, notably the Data Governance Act, Digital Services Act, Digital Market Act and the Data Act.

In their proposals, applicants will need to demonstrate that they adhere to the data protection, security, portability and energy and resource efficiency requirements applicable to data-processing/storage services and activities developed under the relevant European codes of conduct, initiatives and legislation. Participants should also demonstrate that they have put in place all reasonable technical, legal and organisational measures in order to prevent transfer or access – including unsolicited transfers or access - to personal or non-personal data (including processed data and meta-data) held in the Union that would be unlawful under Union law or applicable national law.

This topic is complementary to the actions foreseen under the Digital Europe Programme (DEP), which focuses on the deployment at large-scale of the next generation of European cloud to edge services, the associated EU marketplace, and modular middleware platforms for interoperability between different data services.

Where applicable, proposals can as well be combined with the RRF in line with State aid rules as relevant, where CEF Digital is used to e.g. interconnect stakeholders across borders and RRF is used to complement with intra-national cloud infrastructure investments.

Proposals should also explain how operators of essential services related to connectivity involved in the cross-border interconnection of national cloud infrastructures address the cybersecurity risks.

Specific measures addressing green policy objectives, in particular in terms of reducing the carbon footprint, will be taken into account during the evaluation of proposals.

No State aid approval is required, if no state resources are used to co-finance the project. Applicants can find information on when State aid applies and whether it needs to be notified for cloud and edge investment in the State aid Cloud Capabilities Guiding Document.

Proposals funded under this topic may include synergetic (ancillary) elements relating to another sector of the CEF programme, i.e. energy and transport, if these synergetic elements allow to significantly improve the socio-economic, climate or environmental benefits of the action. CEF co-funding may be provided as long as the cost of these synergetic elements does not exceed 20% of the total eligible costs of the action.

Please consult the Call document for more information on the scope, including digital security requirements.