Speakers
Description
Theme: AI Facilities and Research User Communities
Initiated by: GÉANT AI NREN Group
Target Audience: Open to all TNC participants
Abstract
AI Factories and large‑scale AI infrastructures are being deployed rapidly across Europe. However, many user communities—particularly in research, education, environmental sciences and cultural heritage—are not yet structurally organised to engage with these facilities in a sustainable and effective way. This raises a critical question: how do we avoid building advanced AI infrastructure without clearly aligned and supported user communities?
This Birds of a Feather session brings together representatives from three research user communities—Destination Earth, ENVRI (environmental sciences), and cultural heritage—that have explicitly expressed the need for access to AI facilities. The session will explore how these communities are currently involved in strategic planning, onboarding, and service design, and where gaps remain.
In parallel, representatives from three service and infrastructure providers—GÉANT, Internet2, and PCSS—will share their perspectives on connecting AI facilities with research communities. These organisations pursue a common goal: enabling seamless, trusted and scalable access to AI infrastructure through NRENs and associated services.
The BoF will also reflect on concrete initiatives and deployments, including GÉANT’s EuroHPC Hyperconnectivity work, Internet2’s experience with hyperscaler connectivity for AI research, and PCSS insights into AI Factory infrastructures and their relationship with NRENs. Rather than promoting specific solutions, the session aims to jointly explore emerging NREN strategies for AI and to surface practical lessons from both providers and users.
Format (60–90 minutes, interactive)
Context setting:
Three user communities: 5 minutes each to outline their mission and AI infrastructure needs
Three service providers: 5 minutes each to outline their approach and strategic orientation
Facilitated discussion:
Moderated panel discussion focused on matching needs and offerings
Active participation from the audience through questions and suggestions
Synthesis:
Identification of key gaps, opportunities and potential next steps for NRENs and communities
Topics for Discussion
- Are current AI infrastructure offerings aligned with community needs? What is missing?
- How can onboarding of community members be simplified and scaled?
- How can infrastructure capacity be used more effectively?
- How should connectivity and NREN services evolve to support AI‑driven research?
- Should NRENs invest more in data stewardship and research engagement to better understand user use cases?
What will the TNC audience take away from your talk?
Participants attending this BoF will leave with a clear, cross‑community understanding of how current AI infrastructure offerings align—or fail to align—with the real needs of research user communities. By hearing directly from multiple domains and providers in the same room, the audience will gain clarity on where mismatches exist between expectations, service models and practical access conditions, moving beyond fragmented, project‑specific perspectives. The session will also provide concrete insight into the evolving role of NRENs in the AI Factory ecosystem, highlighting how connectivity, brokerage, onboarding support, data stewardship and research engagement are increasingly critical to enable effective use of AI facilities. Through the comparison of experiences from different communities and infrastructure providers, participants will identify patterns that are transferable to their own national or institutional contexts, distinguishing domain‑specific requirements from more generic gaps in services or organisation. The discussion will surface early signals about future service, investment and policy directions, including where infrastructure risks under‑utilisation and where targeted NREN action could have the greatest impact. Finally, the audience will have the opportunity to actively contribute to follow‑up work, as insights from the BoF will inform a white paper in the context of the GN5‑2 project, the GÉANT AI NREN Group and the SIG‑AI, and may complement the NREN use‑case inventory, allowing participants to help shape outcomes that extend well beyond TNC itself.
| Are you a first time speaker at TNC? | Yes |
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