System Architecture - Standardisation and Follow-up/PoCs

The focus of this Strand is on several complementary issues mentioned below and applicants may select one or more of these issues.

• New design approaches for 6G system architecture systems in all aspects of control, data and management plane including further advances that emerge out of the collaboration of individual networks or subsystems owned by different stakeholders, at computing and networking levels. These subsystems may potentially include Non-Public Networks (NPN) - including short/extreme connectivity - and/or NTN segments. This may require rethinking key service and network interfaces, structure and enablers covering simplification, sustainability, energy-efficiency, resource or asset sharing, resource configuration orchestration and allocation, robustness, and security, federation and mobility across networks. For the new advanced 6G services, it is desirable to enhance networks with the capability to guarantee a certain performance (i.e. latency, reliability, throughput) across different operation conditions (e.g. using overlay time synchronisation). Negotiation, accounting and billing across multiple systems, as well proper authentication, authorisation are also in scope. The work covers the migration/deployment strategies that may be most appropriate in EU deployment scenarios.
• Native and trustworthy integration of AI for telecommunications, including edge cloud continuum. Native integration of AI/ML is in scope to implement end-to-end adaptive decision-making ensuring conflict resolution and a high degree of trustworthiness while addressing privacy and explainability issues, operating at different time scales with expected impact on energy and network as well as other services’ performance.
• Network exposure to vertical application developers including protocols, algorithms, architectures and solutions for user-to-systems interface. Allowing exposition of available resources and required/value-added service attributes (performance, security, sustainability) related to the user applications and getting semantic of the requirements from user applications explicitly or implicitly. Specific approaches for relevant vertical ecosystems are in scope.
• Mechanisms, leading to partial or complete Digital network twinning, applied in 6G including the dynamic virtual representation of critical components and systems, the simulation and modelling tools for large-scale real-time environments; derivation of network models (digital twins) from traffic analysis; These models should be created in a trustworthy (secure) and privacy preserving way. Digital twin models as a core for network planning, management and control are also in scope.
• New Data Transfer Paradigms, considering enhanced data plane (including IP framework evolution) techniques with deep Edge integration. In scope are considered Compute-Interconnection (CIC) architectural frameworks expected to enable data plane evolution that is economically and technically sustainable. Cross-flow and cross-endpoint data plane mechanisms and protocols for cross-flow resource and timing (latency) control.

The scope includes, where relevant, harmonisation/coordination with Member States or Associated Countries 6G initiatives. Any produced PoCs should be implemented in a way that their integration in SNS WP2025-26 Stream C and/or Stream D project will be possible (e.g. open-source solutions, appropriate documentation, support after the completion of the project).