CIRES

As our world becomes increasingly connected and digital, the century-old infrastructures that underpin our societies are undergoing rapid transformation through digitalization. While driven by the pursuit of greater economic efficiency, this evolution often compromises resilience to external disturbances, cyber threats, and human errors. To build truly digital and resilient infrastructures, beyond merely digitalized versions of tradi-tional systems, we need innovative technologies across the entire edge-to-cloud continuum. Modern infrastructures must generate and process data locally, integrate AI-driven intelligence, and maintain robust communication across vast distances in real-time, unlocking economic op-portunities and societal inclusion from rural areas to megacities. However, the shift to fully digital infrastructures also introduces critical risks: interoperability challenges, technical misalignments, and new cybersecurity vulnerabilities. Even brief service disruptions in sectors like energy, digital services, and global supply chains can trigger signifi-cant societal and economic consequences, including threats to human safety. CIRES will develop and demonstrate advanced technologies to enhance resilience and societal trust in critical infrastructures, ensuring that we can “keep them running”. Building on a holistic edge-to-cloud approach, CIRES will advance: 1) embedded AI for real-time anomaly detection and autonomous decision-making, 2) resilient communication architec-tures for mobile and distributed infrastructures, and 3) distributed edge-cloud platforms de-signed to ensure extreme availability and operational continuity. By addressing the systemic vulnerabilities of our increasingly digital society, CIRES will help Europe lead the way toward strategic autonomy, infrastructure and supply chain resilience, and technological sovereignty in the face of future global challenges.