The ripple effects of developments in artificial intelligence (AI) – mostly emanating from a limited group of companies outside of Europe and taking place at breakneck speed – continue to spread across the computing ecosystem, with implications for everything from individual careers up to whole industries. As hyperscalers announce massive infrastructure buildouts and AI tools gain increasing functions and autonomy, Europe is left wondering whether it is too late to join the party.
But what if there were another paradigm for next-generation computing? What if this paradigm avoided reliance on massive data centres, with their eye-watering energy demands? What if it facilitated collaboration and the pooling of existing computing resources; eschewed the antisocial incentives of the attention economy and surveillance capitalism while allowing users to harness computing power tailored to their needs; and was based on rightsized infrastructure created in Europe which allowed for flexible, sustainable, resilient operation?
At a time of intense global volatility, the HiPEAC Vision 2026 argues that, rather than blindly copying other countries’ roadmaps, Europe can and should carve out its own path in computing: a trajectory which reflects the European context while supporting the values and culture which are important to European society.
This CONNECT University session will provide an in-depth exploration of the key topics covered by the HiPEAC Vision 2026:
- The next computing paradigm, offering the ability to access services on demand and distribute computations from edge to cloud.
- New frontiers in AI, including the deployment of specialized action models coordinated by an orchestrator.
- Why next-generation hardware should be modular rather than monolithic, reconfigurable rather than static.
- How AI is impacting tools used to create hardware and software, and what this means both for the skills developers will need in future and for European sovereignty.
- The key issues in securing the next generation of computing systems, from AI in both attack and defence to supply-chain vulnerabilities.
- Why open source is fundamental for the European computing industry, and how it contributes to sustainability and sovereignty.
- How the information technology (IT) sector should tackle the problem of sustainability.
- A clear breakdown of how Europe measures up on the world computing stage, and the IT policies that can contribute to a thriving European economy.