ALLEGRO - Agile Ultra Low Energy and Secure Networks

The ALLEGRO project aims at designing and validating a novel end-to-end sliceable, reliable, and secure architecture for next-generation optical networks, achieving high transmission/switching capacity — with 10 Tb/s for optoelectronic devices and 1 Pbt/s for optical fiber systems — low power consumption/cost and secure infrastructures and data transfers. The architecture relies on key enabling innovations:

i.    smart, coherent transceivers exploiting multi-band & multi-fiber technologies for P2P and P2MP applications, based on e.g., high-speed plasmonic modulators/photodetectors and programmable silicon photonic integrated waveguide meshes.

ii.    loss-less, energy-efficient transparent photonic integrated optical switches, eliminating OEO conversions, e.g., with on-chip amplification in the O-band for datacom applications.

iii.    a consistent approach to security, in terms of functional/protocol architectures and communications, further improving QKD systems, enabling optical channel co-existence and researching on quantum-resistant (post-quantum) cryptography and

iv.    a scalable AI/ML assisted control and orchestration system, responsible for autonomous networking, dynamic and constrained service provisioning, function placement and resource allocation. To achieve the target objectives and KPIs, ALLEGRO has defined a clear methodology ending in ambitious demonstrators. The consortium includes a good balance of industry and research/academia with know-how in complementary fields. The results of ALLEGRO will be disseminated in leading conferences, events, and high-impact journals. They will have a concrete and measurable economic and social impact, contributing towards achieving key European objectives, reinforcing European leadership and digital sovereignty in the ongoing digital and green transition.