Impact
RISER: RISC-V for cloud services
Economic Impact
RISER outcomes, along with compliance to DAIRO/BDVA, Helix Nebula and GAIA-X and sustainability via open sources communities are expected to further contribute to EU long-term Expected Impacts (EI): The expected impact of the destination that RISER is addressing is “Globally attractive, secure and dynamic data-agile economy, by developing and enabling the uptake of the next-generation computing and data technologies and infrastructures (including space infrastructure and data), enabling the European single market for data with the corresponding data spaces and a trustworthy artificial intelligence ecosystem”.
EC1: RISER will contribute to safeguarding European competitive position in data economy and leadership in significant digital, enabling and emerging technologies.
The global cloud computing market size is expected to grow from USD 445.3 billion in 2021 to USD 947.3 billion by 2026, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 16.3% during the forecast period. Digital business transformation has entered a more challenging and urgency-driven phase due to the COVID-19 pandemic. RISER can enhance the European position in this very large and fast-expanding cloud market with a high economic impact. As a result, it is expected that RISER will provide the technology that becomes the means for significant revenues and earnings to the European economy. RISER is expected to impact, either directly or indirectly, the global European Digital Society by contributing to the long-term evolution of next-generation cloud infrastructures and services and introduce novel technologies and software, based on the RISC-V architecture, that will enable the development of advanced cloud solutions and applications. With the participation of RISER partners in greater ecosystems (DAIRO/BDVA, Helix Nebula and GAIA-X), RISER will contribute to safeguarding Europe’s position in the global cloud market and subsequently in the global data economy.
EC2: RISER will strengthen European autonomy creating a significant economic impact in the cloud infrastructure services.
While the cloud computing size is expected to grow, 76% of the global public cloud market is dominated by 5 non-European companies (AWS, Microsoft, Google, Alibaba and Tencent). A significant reason is that there are no advanced European cloud infrastructures. RISER targets to provide the first all-European infrastructure, including the hardware and low-level software, employing European RISC-V processor chips and boards designed within the project. In this way, Europe can play an active role in cloud infrastructure technology and attract cloud infrastructure investments. Worldwide cloud infrastructure services expenditure topped US$50 billion in a quarter for the first time in Q4 2021, growing from US$129 billion in 2020 to US$178 billion in 2022.
Environmental Impact
Despite the very high rank that Europe holds in Environmental standards, there are still important challenges it must face. Out of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, we may highlight Goal 7 (“Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all”) and Goal 9 (“Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization”). Data centers use an estimated 200 terawatt hours (TWh) each year. That is more than the national energy consumption of some countries and just 1% of global electricity demand38. Energy projections show that the data centers will take a large slice of the total electricity demand.
EN1: RISER will directly support CO2 footprint reduction by enabling energy-efficient cloud infrastructures and architectures, including low-power components and energy-efficient data communication
It is therefore important to focus on how we can make our cloud less power hungry. RISER follows two approaches. First, RISER employs low-power components, such as RISC-V processors and LPDDR4 memories. Second, an energy-efficient architecture will be developed. As the amount of cloud data being generated and processed and the size of cloud infrastructures increase, there is a higher need to limit the data movements in the cloud infrastructure itself. Several communication protocols rely on multiple data exchanges in order to transfer information between different processing units. RISER will support energy efficient communication protocols through the Chip-to-Chip links that can be used to coherently interconnect several processor chips offering an energy-efficient communication infrastructure directly implemented in hardware.
Societal Impact
RISER is expected to have significant societal impacts, including:
Extended Service Offerings and innovative applications.
The RISER cloud platforms will enable new business models for numerous European service providers that will be able to utilize the unique features, the scalability, and the energy-efficiency so as to deliver sustainable, high quality cloud and edge services. The technology and building components implemented in RISER will support the creation of applications in a number of areas, allowing the application developers to take full control of their data since the processing is performed on European infrastructures, thus increasing the safety and wellbeing of the European citizens.
Reinforcing competitiveness and creating new business.
The RISER features will allow the cloud platform operators and cloud service developers/providers to compete with innovative services. New knowledge will create new fields for investment, generating new employment opportunities and competitiveness. RISER will not only offer technology and building components, but via an Open access platform will support future initiatives, as well as start-ups and SMEs to build innovative sustainable new business.