On February 9–11, 2026, UNITY-6G participated in the 3rd ETSI AI and Data Conference, held face-to-face at the ETSI premises in Sophia Antipolis, France. The event gathered a specialized audience of standardization experts, policymakers, and industry innovators to discuss the crucial intertwining of artificial intelligence and data management technologies.
The conference arrived at a critical time for European digital policy, focusing heavily on standardisation requests supporting the EU AI Act and the EU Data Act. Amid deep dives into emerging areas like Agentic AI, trustworthy data ecosystems, and new frameworks within ETSI’s technical committees, the event featured 18 select technical demonstrations and posters showcasing practical AI applications for future networks.
Representing the UNITY-6G consortium, Amedeo Buonanno (CTTC) presented a technical poster titled “SEM-NTN: Semantic Communications for Intelligent Open RAN-enabled Satellite Networks.” The presentation introduced UNITY-6G’s forward-thinking architectural approach to embedding semantic communication principles directly into non-terrestrial network (NTN) nodes. By transmitting the underlying meaning or intent of data rather than raw data streams, the framework aims to significantly reduce overhead and optimize spectrum efficiency.
The presentation demonstrated how Open RAN (O-RAN) architectures can be extended into the satellite domain to create intelligent, open, and adaptive 6G network layers. This integration is vital for achieving the seamless, global coverage demands of future 6G networks, allowing spaceborne nodes to intelligently manage changing environmental dynamics and traffic loads.
Participating in this face-to-face event allowed our project to showcase its concrete contributions to AI-native networking architectures, engaging directly with standardization bodies and the broader research community to align the project’s technical outputs with evolving European digital standards.
