As part of the National Acceleration Strategy launched by the government, the CEA and Inria have been charged with piloting the PEPR Cloud in 2023. Funded by France 2030 to the tune of 51 million euros over 7 years, this PEPR aims to continue and intensify French research efforts around the cloud, but also to facilitate the transfer of innovations and solutions resulting from research to industry and the main open source communities.
The French government has entrusted CEA and Inria with the scientific management of the PEPR Cloud, with ANR as the operator.
This program, with its eight ambitious projects, is a key lever in the National Cloud Acceleration Strategy and aims to address the scientific and technological challenges related in particular to performance, security and economy with a view to digital sovereignty. These eight projects, seven of which were launched at the end of 2023 and one of which will be launched in 2024 through a call for projects, represent the three main areas of work to meet evolving needs:
- “Edge Computing” or ‘digital continuum’, which consists of maintaining a continuum between clouds, i.e. small data centers located near connected objects (IoT), enabling faster and more efficient data processing. Such a shift is necessary to meet the needs of future applications such as smart cities, future industry or autonomous vehicles.
- Traditional security mechanisms need to be adapted to take account of the increased attack surface due to the Cloud-Edge-IoT continuum. This means greater data volumes, more heterogeneous data centers, more connected devices, greater mobility of users and resources, and a diversity of access networks.
- On the energy side, Edge infrastructures offer more opportunities and levers for action than large centralized infrastructures, such as the use of renewable energies, the reuse of energy dissipated by cooling, and the reduction of data movements. In addition, a number of issues relating to the consideration and optimization of each application’s energy footprint will be addressed.
—– PEPR Cloud Objectives
Supervised by strategic, scientific and management committees, the program focuses on scientific collaboration and technological innovation. It aims to support universities and research organizations in research activities targeting strategic sectors. The aim is to help key players meet ecological challenges and boost their competitiveness, to enable the emergence of future leaders in these fields of excellence.
—– PEPR Cloud Ecosystem
CEA and Inria will mobilize the strengths of French research in consultation with all stakeholders. The scientific steering of this program will be carried out in close liaison with the national public and private research community, and operated by the French National Research Agency (ANR).
Their aim is to contribute, through research and innovation, to the development of secure, sovereign Cloud technologies. These technologies are an essential foundation for all digital industries. They are also crucial to economic and industrial sovereignty.
