SUstainable federatioN of Research Infrastructures for Scaling-up Experimentation in 6G

6G is expected to emerge as key enabler for the intelligent digital society of 2030 and beyond, providing superior performance via groundbreaking access technologies, such as joint communication and sensing, cell-free, Radio Intelligent Surfaces, and ubiquitous wireless intelligence . Most importantly, 6G is expected to trigger a total rethink of network architecture design, which builds on the key idea of new stakeholders entering into the value chain of future networks. The SUNRISE-6G approach is inspired by the “network of networks” concept of 6G Networks, aiming to integrate all private and public infrastructures under a massively scalable internet-like architecture. SUNRISE-6G similarly aspires to create a federation of 6G test infrastructures in a pan-european facility that will support converged Testing as a Service (TaaS) workflows and tools, a unified catalogue of 6G enablers publicly accessible by experimenters, and cross-domain vertical application onboarding. Experimentation and vertical application onboarding are offered via a Tenant Web Portal, that acts as a single-entry point to the facility, serving end users (e.g., experimenters) and tenants (e.g., vertical developers, infrastructure owners, 6G component manufactures). The project execution is based on 4 pillars, delivering: (a) the Implementation of new 6G enablers, complementary to existing ones being developed in SNS Phase 1 projects, (b) A truly scalable and 3GPP compliant Federation solution that provides access to heterogeneous resources and devices from all Europe, (c) A Federated AI plane aligned with AIaaS and MLOPS paradigms, which promotes a collaborative approach to AI research which benefits immensely from scaling-up datasets and models and (d) a commonly adopted Experimentation Plane, which offers common workflows to experimenters.