About ITEA

The rapid advancement of software and systems is not only improving quality of life but is also reshaping modern society, making it more interconnected, informed, and resilient. Software-driven solutions influence everything from economic stability to individual well-being, enabling access to better healthcare, safer cities, and more inclusive services. What once seemed like distant possibilities, such as AI-assisted elderly care, predictive healthcare analytics, and seamless digital government services, are now within reach, redefining human experiences at a fundamental level. Historically, information accessibility and automation have driven societal progress, from the industrial revolution to the internet era. Today, we are witnessing the next leap: personalised, AI-powered services that adapt to individual needs, and autonomous systems that enhance mobility, security, and healthcare. AI-driven personalised medicine, for instance, allows treatments to be tailored to an individual’s genetic profile, significantly improving health outcomes. In mobility, integrated transport networks and autonomous vehicles promise safer, more efficient travel, reducing congestion and emissions while increasing accessibility. Meanwhile, intelligent digital assistants, care robots, and AI-driven governance tools are making public services more efficient, transparent, and inclusive.

However, alongside these advancements come significant challenges: digital equity, data privacy, and trust in digital systems are more crucial than ever. Ensuring easy and safe access to reliable information, protecting citizens from cybersecurity threats, and fostering public trust in digital services are critical for a well-functioning digital society. The transformation ahead is not just about technology but also about ensuring that this evolution serves all individuals and communities fairly and securely.

In the near future, the convergence of AI, robotics, and distributed systems will lead to even more profound societal changes. Imagine smart environments where buildings autonomously adapt to their occupants' needs, real-time AI-driven disaster response systems that can predict and mitigate crises, and digital twins of entire cities that help urban planners optimise resource distribution and sustainability. These are no longer distant concepts but emerging realities that software and systems innovation will make possible.

Innovative solutions in software and systems are also the origin for numerous new business opportunities and the evolution of existing ones. As industries shift from rigid, hardware-driven designs to flexible, software-based solutions, new opportunities emerge across manufacturing, engineering, and service sectors. The transition from limited-purpose, ‘hard-wired’ products to open, and flexible software-based services has already reshaped the global economy, contributing significantly to the competitiveness of our industrial partners. Businesses that once relied on physical infrastructure are now leveraging software to optimise operations, operate in a more sustainable manner, and unlock new revenue models.

The past decade saw the rise of cloud computing, AI-driven automation, and software-defined infrastructures, which have fundamentally changed business landscapes. The next wave of economic transformation will be shaped by AI-powered decision-making, real-time data analytics, and the fusion of physical and digital economies. Consider, for example, how predictive maintenance powered by AI is reducing downtime and costs in manufacturing, how smart supply chains are dynamically adapting to market changes, or how the circular economy is being revolutionised by digital twins that optimise material reuse and sustainability.

One of the most significant economic benefits of software innovation lies in efficiency gains and resource optimisation. Cloud computing has already demonstrated how shared infrastructure can reduce energy consumption and improve cost-effectiveness. The next step is to extend these benefits to all industry domains , by enabling e.g. AI-driven automation in production lines, software-defined energy grids, and digital marketplaces that optimise resource distribution.

However, to fully realise this transformation, companies must navigate challenges such as cybersecurity risks, digital sovereignty, and the transition from legacy systems to software-defined architectures. The industries that adapt fastest will not only gain competitive advantages but will also play a critical role in defining the future of economic growth. Companies will shift from selling products to offering software-defined services, where businesses no longer just provide machinery but guarantee performance outcomes; a shift already seen in sectors like manufacturing, automotive, and smart infrastructure.

The integration of pioneering technologies from various ICT domains, including those currently available and those envisioned for the near future, will revolutionise the way the real and virtual worlds interact. When the Internet, and its technological basis formed out of communication, computing and operation, evolves beyond its current ‘best effort’ capabilities into a reliable, distributed system, the consequences will be significant. Interactions between actors like humans, machines, buildings, roads and services in the real world - and their virtual counterparts (e.g., digital twins, the metaverse, sensor data) - will become seamless, secure, predictable, and capable of occurring in (application-relevant) real time. We refer to this transformative concept as the ‘Cyber-Physical-Metaverse.’ Whereas the development of cloud services primarily disrupted the IT sector, the emergence of the Cyber-Physical-Metaverse will have a disruptive impact across all domains.

The cloud provided on-demand services with virtually unlimited performance to any IT service that could live with a best-effort availability of the result. Highly optimised, energy-efficient shared data and computer centres replaced over- or under-dimensioned local servers. This shift not only improved cost-effectiveness but also replaced traditional business models (e.g., one-time-payments or hardware leases) with a recurring revenue model where the user pays for consumption.

The Cyber-Physical-Metaverse takes this concept further. By combining unlimited processing power with any device, anywhere, safely and in real-time, it will fundamentally change how products are designed, marketed and used. Devices will no longer need extensive local hardware beyond what is essential to perform their physical functions. Processing tasks can be decoupled from hardware, introducing a new dimension in engineering.

For example, this capability to enable machines to interact with others and seamlessly in groups through actionable digital twins in the virtual world will enable infrastructure-based autonomous driving at a significantly lower cost and with higher quality than what is currently envisioned. Real-time sensor data can be fed into software and AI systems, which will subsequently control machines in the real world safely and reliably. This represents a domain-agnostic, disruptive technological advance. As ‘control loops’ exist in nearly every hardware and software system in use today, the impact is likely to exceed what we can currently imagine.

What we can predict, however, is a gradual adoption timeline. Different industries will integrate these technologies at varying points in time, and they will not become available all at once. A likely trajectory is that adoption will begin and accelerate into exponential growth, and for most domains, starting potentially with industry and robotics, this point will be reached in the next decade.

Therefore applied R&D activities that focus on the precompetitive TRL levels are highly relevant today. ITEA as an bottom-up instrument, focusing on software and systems innovation and its ‘melting-pot’ community is a perfect place to accelerate together towards this disruptive opportunity.