Europe’s technological sovereignty is not simply about developing competitive AI models or manufacturing advanced semiconductors. It is increasingly about who controls, secures and operates the millions of connected devices underpinning our critical infrastructures — and the energy systems on which they depend.

As intelligence moves from centralised clouds towards IoT devices and edge infrastructures, four interconnected challenges emerge.

1. Decentralised AI introduces new cybersecurity challenges. Constrained computing resources, heterogeneous architectures and fragmented software ecosystems complicate the secure deployment of intelligence. Distributed AI also introduces new attack vectors, including model poisoning, malicious updates, compromised inference services and manipulation of the data driving autonomous decisions.

2. Firmware security creates long-term technological dependencies. Millions of connected devices rely on proprietary firmware, manufacturer-controlled updates and external software supply chains. Infrastructure operators may lack the means to independently inspect, patch or maintain their assets. Secure boot, trusted OTA updates, software provenance and vulnerability management are essential to reducing these dependencies and strengthening operational autonomy.

3. Cyberattacks can directly threaten energy infrastructure and physical operations. Smart grids, EV chargers, energy storage systems and industrial facilities increasingly depend on remotely managed IoT devices and AI-driven control. Compromised assets can manipulate measurements, disrupt energy flexibility services or trigger unauthorised actions, potentially affecting energy availability, operational continuity and physical safety.

4. Energy efficiency and cybersecurity must be addressed together. Moving intelligence closer to devices can reduce communication overhead and cloud dependence, but distributed computation also consumes energy and introduces new security requirements. Determining where, when and how intelligence should execute requires jointly considering energy consumption, renewable availability, performance, trust and operational resilience.

How O-CEI contributes

The EU-funded O-CEI project advances an open, interoperable and energy-aware Cloud–Edge–IoT computing continuum, building upon European MetaOS research and open-source technologies.

Its architecture provides opportunities to address these challenges through several complementary technological directions:

• Cyber-resilient lifecycle management: Supporting the integration of trusted software deployment, vulnerability monitoring and coordinated isolation or recovery of compromised components.
• Trustworthy federation and digital identity: Enabling secure interactions across organisations, devices and computing domains through interoperable identity, access-control and data-governance mechanisms.
• Secure, energy-aware orchestration: Distributing AI workloads and services across heterogeneous infrastructures while considering energy efficiency, performance and security requirements.
• Distributed intelligence and energy flexibility: Supporting forecasting, demand response, smart charging and renewable energy integration while protecting the integrity of the underlying data and control decisions.
• Reduced technological dependence: Promoting open interfaces, reusable blueprints and heterogeneous hardware integration to strengthen interoperability and mitigate vendor lock-in.

These technological directions connect with O-CEI’s real-world pilots in energy communities, electromobility, logistics and agrifood, where distributed computing and energy flexibility must operate across heterogeneous devices, infrastructures and organisational boundaries.

For instance, coordinating EV charging with renewable generation and electricity demand requires trustworthy measurements, secure control commands and reliable orchestration across distributed computing resources. A compromised component could undermine both the energy optimisation objectives and the operational resilience of the system.

O-CEI does not eliminate foreign semiconductor dependencies or solve every firmware vulnerability. However, its interoperable computing-continuum architecture provides a foundation for integrating the security, intelligence and energy-management capabilities required by Europe’s increasingly decentralised infrastructure.

Cybersecurity and energy flexibility cannot be treated independently. A distributed energy system cannot be considered sustainable or resilient if its devices can be remotely compromised, its measurements manipulated or its control infrastructure disabled.

Strengthening Europe’s technological sovereignty therefore requires not only intelligent and energy-efficient devices, but also secure, interoperable and operationally controllable infrastructures throughout their lifecycle.