IPCEI-CIS at the 2026 EuCNC & 6G Summit

The 2026 EuCNC & 6G Summit took place in Málaga, Spain, from 2 to 5 June, bringing together around 1,200 participants and 102 exhibitors from over 40 countries. Now in its 35th edition, the conference is sponsored by the IEEE Communications Society and supported by the European Commission and the Finnish 6G Flagship Programme. Held under the theme 6G: From Vision to Reality, it covered topics ranging from 5G and 6G communications systems to cloud and virtualisation solutions, microelectronic technologies and vertical application areas, and served as one of the principal venues for demonstrating results from European research and innovation programmes.

The role of open source in underpinning standardisation efforts also featured prominently. The NeoNephos and Sylva foundations, both rooted in IPCEI-CIS, were cited as strong examples of open-source and standardisation targets worth pursuing at European scale. A notable contribution came from Cayetano Carbajo Martín of Telefónica, whose presentation illustrated the successful edge federation achieved among IPCEI-CIS project partners Orange, Telefónica, Telekom and TIM.

Technological Sovereignty Package

On June 3rd, the second day of the summit, the European Commission launched its Technological Sovereignty Package, a set of legislative and strategic measures addressing semiconductors, artificial intelligence, cloud infrastructure and open source. The announcement lent additional weight to the discussions under way at the conference, reinforcing the alignment between European research programmes and the Union's broader industrial and digital policy ambitions.

The integration of communication, cloud technology and artificial intelligence in an open and interoperable manner emerged as one of the summit's central themes. In his opening remarks, Thibaut Kleiner, Director of Future Networks at DG Connect, set the tone for the policy dimension of the discussions, observing that regulation can serve not merely to mitigate risks, but to actively lead deployment.

The summit further confirmed the growing recognition of the 8ra initiative as a reference point for a common European approach to building a decentralised, interoperable and secure cloud-edge continuum.