Building Europe’s sustainable cloud infrastructure: the role of BMS in the MISD project

Digital services are growing rapidly, and with them, the demand for data centres. Traditional data centres consume substantial amounts of energy and are often centrally located. This can lead to inefficiencies, higher emissions, and dependency on non-European infrastructure providers.

MISD addresses these challenges by developing a modular, integrated, and sustainable edge data centre concept. Instead of relying on large, central data centres, researchers focus on distributed, smaller-scale data centres that can be deployed close to where data is generated and used. This approach reduces energy losses, improves performance, and supports a more resilient European digital infrastructure.

The University of Twente, including our BMS researchers, contribute to MISD with strong expertise in high-tech systems, digital infrastructure, strategic ecosystem development, and sustainable engineering.

Altogether, UT researchers in the faculties of BMS, TNW, ET, and EEMCS play a significant role in:

• Developing an architecture and algorithms for network orchestration systems.
• Researching and designing open-source security solutions for edge data centres.
• Creating heat reuse solutions from data centres to local communities and organizations.
• Exploring strategic ecosystem development for a variety of potential use cases.
• Developing an Impact Accelerator, including communicating and disseminating information about project activities.

With our participation, scientific insights directly contribute to practical, deployable solutions for Europe’s digital future.

MISD is carried out within the framework of the Important Project of Common European Interest on Next Generation Cloud Infrastructure and Services (IPCEI-CIS), a major European initiative aimed at building a sovereign, secure, interoperable, and sustainable cloud-edge ecosystem in Europe. You can learn more about the project on their website.

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