Advancing Sovereign Cloud & Edge Ecosystems: CISERO at FACIS Connect 2026
The two-day conference "FACIS Connect 2026" takes place on 9–10 June 2026 at St. Elisabeth & Villa Elisabeth in Berlin, Germany. Bringing together approximately 200 experts, innovators, and decision-makers from SMEs, research institutions, and politics, this free event explores how to build trust, openness, and interoperability within Europe's digital ecosystems. A key highlight of the event is the active participation of the CISERO project, which will feature a dedicated exhibition booth led by Project Coordinator Matthias Kuom and the DLR team, offering attendees the exclusive opportunity to explore the CISERO platform and register directly.
Event Overview and Core Themes
FACIS Connect 2026, scheduled for Tuesday, 9 June and Wednesday, 10 June 2026, serves as a high-level meeting point for the European cloud and edge computing community. Taking place at the historic St. Elisabeth & Villa Elisabeth complex (Invalidenstr. 3, 10115 Berlin), the conference focuses on the strategic vision of the EU-funded 8ra initiative. It aims to make a trusted, open, and cross-border digital infrastructure tangible for European organisations. By aligning technology, regulation, and investment, the event provides actionable strategies for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), open-source developers, and policy makers to securely share and utilise data across providers without relying on non-European infrastructure.
The comprehensive program balances high-level political dialogues with practical, hands-on collaborative formats. Over the course of the two days, participants will engage with technical panels, real-world industrial use cases, live software demonstrations, and a creative, running technical Hackathon. The event focuses heavily on key digital themes, including federation architecture patterns for Industry 4.0, Service Level Agreements (SLAs), sovereign AI models, and federated infrastructures, which are collectively designed to strengthen Europe's long-term digital competitiveness and supply chain resilience.
Spotlighting the CISERO Platform and On-Site Engagement
As a vital coordination and stakeholder project within Europe's evolving data and cloud infrastructure, the CISERO project will have a prominent physical presence at the event. CISERO Project Coordinator Matthias Kuom, alongside the DLR project team will directly cover the conference, engaging with participants to align strategic cross-initiative goals.
CISERO will host a dedicated exhibition booth throughout the two-day event, acting as a core hub for networking and collaboration. Attendees, particularly representatives from coordination bodies, partner data spaces, and cloud/edge providers, are invited to visit the booth to discover how CISERO supports the broader European cloud ecosystem. Crucially, the booth will feature live access to the CISERO platform, where eligible organisations, IT developers, and SMEs can learn about its capabilities and register directly on-site to become part of this trusted European network.
Bridging Sovereign Infrastructure and Industrial Transformation
The conference agenda features prominent speakers from industry leaders, research institutes, and ministries to dissect the real-world impact of federated ecosystems. Day One kicks off on 9 June at 12:00 CEST, featuring opening keynotes from the eco Association and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWK) regarding Germany's role in shaping European digital infrastructure. This is followed by strategic afternoon panels, including "Connecting Minds. Building Trust," which features experts from Capgemini and STACKIT discussing open architectures, and "Industrial Collaboration in the Digital Age," where research directors and Airbus Operations managers will share insights on scaling cloud-edge technologies for industrial manufacturing.
Later in the afternoon, the focus shifts to advanced computing paradigms with the session "AI Beyond the Hype: Building Europe’s Trusted AI Ecosystem." Featuring representatives from the Center for Sovereign AI, the Fraunhofer Institute (IAIS), and the BMWK's IPCEI-AI coordination unit, this panel explores the intersection of federated cloud architectures and sovereign European AI models. Day One concludes with a sponsored evening networking reception from 18:00 to 22:00 CEST, setting the stage for Day Two on 10 June, which expands into full-day practical workshops, technical panel outcomes, and final results from the concurrent FACIS Hackathon components. Admission to the full conference and networking sessions is free of charge, making it an essential destination for stakeholders driving Europe's digital sovereignty.
More info and full agenda available at the event website https://www.facis.eu/event/facis-connect-2026/