We are pleased to announce the finalized program of the 2nd Machine Learning for Edge-Cloud Systems (ML4ECS) Workshop, co-organized by the Horizon Europe projects CODECO, EDGELESS, and MLSysOps.

The workshop will take place on January 26, 2026, in Kraków, Poland, as part of the HiPEAC 2026 Conference. ML4ECS focuses on advanced research and practical solutions for machine learning–based application management and orchestration across the IoT–Edge–Cloud continuum.

Program Highlights:

11:00 – 12:00 | Keynote Speech
Dr. Lorenzo Valerio (IIT-CNR)
“Decentralized Federated Learning Over Edge Networks: A Coordination-Free Learning Substrate for Agentic AI”

12:30 – 14:00 | EDGELESS Session
Cognitive edge-cloud systems with serverless computing

15:00 – 16:30 | CODECO Session
Cognitive Decentralized Edge-to-Cloud Orchestration

17:00 – 18:30 | MLSysOps Session
Machine Learning for Autonomic System Operation in the Heterogeneous Edge-Cloud Continuum

ML4ECS brings together academic researchers and industry practitioners to address the challenges of next-generation edge-cloud ecosystems, with a strong emphasis on autonomy, scalability, and intelligence.

The full program is available at https://ml4ecs.e-ce.uth.gr/

Ana Pereira of Ubiwhere presented a position paper titled  “From Data-Centred to Data-Driven: Gaia-X and the Architecture of Smart Public Administration” at the Gaia-X Summit 2025, focusing on the domains of geoinformation, the public sector, and smart cities and regions of Hub Portugal. The event took place on 20-21 November, in Porto, Portugal.

Ubiwhere participated as an Industry Partner in the Smart City Expo World Congress 2025, held in Barcelona from 4–6 November. Under the theme “The Time for Cities”, the congress brought together technology companies, public authorities, researchers, and urban innovation stakeholders to explore how technology and sustainability can shape smarter cities.

During the event, the MLSysOps project was presented at Ubiwhere’s stand by Bruno Pereira, highlighting Ubiwhere’s contribution and use case within the project and its relevance to next-generation smart city solutions.

Prof. Giancarlo Fortino of the University of Calabria delivered an invited IEEE SMCS Distinguished Lecture at Sunway University in Selangor, Malaysia, where he was hosted by Prof. Ts. Chien-Sing Lee. His talk, “Edge Intelligence for Next‑Generation IoT Systems,” highlighted recent research on edge computing and distributed systems, including the MLSysOps project. The session drew enthusiastic participation from students and faculty and sparked engaging discussions on cutting-edge IoT topics.

During Aveiro Tech Week 2025 which took place on October 7th in the city of Aveiro, Portugal, Ana Pereira and Sandra Barnabé presented “MLSysOps in action: Safer and more connected smart cities“, an interactive session where visitors had the opportunity to explore urban data in real time and understand the role of technologies such as the cloud-edge continuum in creating scalable and efficient solutions.

Over 60 students and mentors from across Europe came together for two days of collaboration at the MLSysOps Hackathon, using MLSysOps’ framework to design and apply different policies for cloud-edge continuum computing.

Red Team took the top prize as overall winner, while Purple Team impressed as Best Presenter. All 7 teams showcased creativity, technical skill, and collaborative problem-solving.

Read the full recap and see the highlights at the main Hackathon page!

The MLSysOps consortium returned to Rende (after two years) for the 6th plenary on September 25-26. Partners synced on various technical threads and mapped out the next steps for the final phase of the project. The plenary concluded with the final preparations for the Hackathon which kicked off immediately after. Hosting by UNICAL was, once again, top notch!

Top highlights from the plenary:

• Final integration steps for the two real-world applications use cases on precision agriculture (AUG) and smart cities (UBIW).
• Overview of the ML-related work conducted by various partners.
• Planning the preparation of the next deliverables.
• Setup and extensive testing of the MLSysOps framework on different system slices for the Hackathon.

Christos Antonopoulos (UTH) participated in a panel discussion at AIOTI Days 2025, held on 22–23 September 2025 in Madrid, Spain. Organized annually by the Alliance for Internet of Things Innovation (AIOTI), the event brings together experts from research, industry, and policymaking to explore advances in IoT, high-performance systems, and related technologies.

At the event, Christos presented the MSysOps project, sharing insights on its goals and progress with an international audience of peers and stakeholders. His contribution highlighted the project’s role within the broader European research and innovation ecosystem showcased at AIOTI Days.

On September 19, 2025, MLSysOps was invited to participate in the Workshop on AI Edge Cloud Computing Continuum organized by the European Health and Digital Executive Agency (HaDEA). The event brought together experts from EU-funded Horizon projects to discuss challenges and opportunities in deploying Artificial Intelligence across the cloud–edge continuum, with a particular focus on sustainability, efficiency, and future research directions.

Nikos Bellas of UTH represented MLSysOps and gave a five-minute presentation on the use of Machine Learning for Autonomic System Operation in the Heterogeneous Edge-Cloud Continuum. The talk described the project’s vision, ongoing research, and outcomes on ML-based resource optimization and application deployment/execution in heterogeneous Edge-Cloud environments.  He also participated in a panel of experts on Energy Efficiency & Sustainability, which explored ways to balance performance scalability with energy efficiency in AI-driven and data-intensive infrastructures, exploiting the synergy between hardware innovation and software optimization.

Ubiwhere participated in the IEEE Conference on Standards for Communications and Networking, held in Bologna, Italy, from 15–17 September 2025. The conference, which ran alongside the one6G Summit 2025, brought together industry and research experts to discuss the future of mobile communication systems through technical sessions, panels, and tutorials.

Luís Pedro Santos of Ubiwhere presented a poster titled “Multi-RAT Enhanced Edge Node for Smart City Applications” which highlighted the UbiBox, a modular edge node capable of supporting multiple wireless technologies simultaneously (Multi-RAT), centralizing IoT data collection, and enabling efficient management of smart city devices and sensors.

The solution has been applied in experimental deployments, including the MLSysOps project, and points toward future integration with AI, machine learning, and advanced edge computing technologies to optimize urban communication networks.