As digital communication networks become the backbone of every modern industry, from autonomous transport and smart manufacturing to aerospace, and next-generation connectivity—the pressure on Europe’s datacom sector to rapidly innovate and lead has never been of greater importance and matter of technological relevance. With the convergence of 6G research, edge computing, and critical vertical applications, what communication infrastructure delivers has significantly changed: not just in terms of speed and bandwidth, but considering security and resilience of the datacom industry overall.
Announcing the DIA Contribution to NetworldEurope’s Strategic Innovation & Research Agenda
In response to this pivotal moment, the Datacom Industry Association (DIA) is proud to announce its key leadership role in contribution to NetworldEurope’s Strategic Innovation & Research Agenda — a forward-looking roadmap, organised by NetworldEurope, the key European Technology Platform for networking technologies, that will define the priorities, challenges, and collaborative pathways for the European datacom ecosystem over the coming years. The Strategic Innovation & Research Agenda charts a course for where research investment must flow, which technological frontiers demand collective action, and how industry and academia can align to ensure Europe remains at the cutting edge of digital communications. By aligning its priorities with FP10, the EU’s 10th Framework Programme for Research and Innovation (2028-2034), this Agenda aims to position the European datacom community to shape and benefit from the future technological frontiers. Collective action is not only a priority, but a necessity with industry and academia to ensure Europe remains at the cutting edge of digital communications. This is a call to action for every stakeholder in the datacom value chain to help build the infrastructure that the industries of tomorrow will depend on.
A Glimpse Inside: Protocols & Communication Paradigms
Within this key agenda, the DIA leads one of the most technically ambitious chapters of the Strategic Innovation Agenda, tackling a key question at the heart of next-generation networking: how must communication protocols themselves evolve to meet the demands of the AI era? This question is in itself at the very heart of the DIA purpose, its activities, and its member interests. In answering this question, the agenda identifies a fundamental leap being underway — not just in what protocols do, but in how they are designed, operated, and governed. The Agenda defines six interconnected research themes that push well beyond today’s state of the art.
These include evolving multi-domain protocol architectures to support even lower latency and softwarised space payloads; harnessing Digital Twins and live operational data to drive realistic, data-grounded protocol development; and placing AI at the centre of communication itself which results from decentralised agentic networking and AI-native routing to semantic communication and inference-defined networking. Cutting across all themes are imperatives for security, transparency, traceability, and policy compliance: in a world of multi-stakeholder, multi-jurisdictional networks, protocols must be verifiably trustworthy, while lifting energy at the level of a key invariant for future datacom systems beyond just awareness but key immersion into protocol operation at all levels. SRIA proposes for all these advancements to rely on open data, foster further international research partnerships, and more of large-scale trials— all aimed at driving Europe’s technical vision into global standardisation.
About the Datacom Industry Association
Founded in December 2024, the Datacom Industry Association (DIA) is a fast-growing European community uniting over 50 members — spanning industry players, academic institutions, and research organisations — from across the continent, with membership continuing to expand. DIA’s mission is to enable a smarter, more resilient, and sustainable future for Europe by advancing secure, innovative, and collaborative digital communication solutions. Operating through a distinctive Vanguard model, DIA brings together vertical working groups in domains such as aerospace, railways, and systems and enabling technologies, connecting ICT expertise directly with the industries that need it most. Through advocacy, joint R&D, open challenge funding, and the publication of technical whitepapers, DIA represents the full data communications value chain—driving influence at both European and national levels to ensure networking research remains a strategic priority.
To learn more or become a member, visit the DIA website at datacom-ia.eu.
For media enquiries, please contact DIA Office.
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