These projects, completed in December 2025, were funded by the Ministry for Digital Transformation and Public Administration through the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan (PRTR) and with funds from the European Union – NextGenerationEU. They have provided IMDEA Networks with robust, open, and multifaceted experimental platforms, ready to address the main technological challenges of future communications, positioning the Institute as a leader in research on mobile networks, quantum computing, and distributed networks at the European level.
From the Lab to Real-World Environments: One of the main achievements of these projects has been the transformation of limited test environments into a comprehensive, scalable, and distributed infrastructure, enabling experimentation both in the lab and in real-world scenarios. In collaboration with the Carlos III University of Madrid (UC3M), the experimental network of the SLICES-Madrid node has been expanded, extending its coverage to indoor and outdoor areas of the university campus and integrating various wireless technologies, the Internet of Things (IoT), edge computing, and quantum communications, including sub-6 GHz, millimeter wave, and terahertz bands, intertwined with secure distributed computing architectures, artificial intelligence infrastructure, and support for quantum key distribution. This expansion has allowed for the validation of new connectivity and service delivery solutions for high-demand computing under real-world conditions, such as mobility, interference, and high device density.
Furthermore, a new data center has been built at IMDEA Networks, designed to house the experimental platforms developed, guaranteeing high-performance computing, ample protected storage, and 100 Gbps connectivity, as well as secure operation and readiness for future growth.
Advanced experimentation: “TEST-6G has significantly transformed the experimental capabilities of IMDEA Networks, consolidating the Institute as the core of the SLICES-Madrid node within the European ESFRI SLICES-RI initiative,” notes Carlos Jesús Bernardos, a part-time researcher at IMDEA Networks and a member of the project team.
Thanks to TEST-6G, the facilities have evolved from an advanced laboratory into a leading European testbed for 6G research and beyond, designed for shared use by the international scientific community. Within this framework, the Institute has been equipped with advanced high-performance computing capabilities, specifically for training and validating artificial intelligence models applied to network management. Furthermore, TEST-6G has enabled progress toward deterministic networks with strict latency and reliability guarantees, and has validated 5G and 6G technologies in real-world physical scenarios using robotics and advanced sensors, overcoming the limitations of purely software-based simulation.
Advanced Radio Infrastructures and Access in Real-World Environments. The ADVANCE-6G project has focused on expanding and diversifying radio access capabilities, moving research from the laboratory to real-world environments. To this end, specific testbeds have been developed that allow experimentation with realistic advanced 5G and 6G architectures. These include a high-order multiband MIMO platform, geared towards advanced communications and the integration of communications and sensing (ISAC), as well as an NG-RAN testbed based on software-defined radios, which facilitates the validation of new solutions at the physical and radio access levels.
“These infrastructures, along with the use of millimeter wave bands, have strengthened IMDEA Networks’ ability to validate advanced 5G and 6G architectures, as well as Wi-Fi technologies, under realistic conditions of propagation, mobility, and network sharing,” explains Joerg Widmer, research director at the institute and principal investigator of ADVANCE-6G.
Artificial intelligence, IoT, and quantum security. Another fundamental pillar of these projects has been the deployment of a comprehensive ecosystem of infrastructures for edge computing and artificial intelligence, embedded and distributed within communication networks. This includes platforms for the generation, optimization, and maintenance of cyber-physical systems; fraud detection; remote sensing systems based on network metadata; an IoT Living Lab with real devices and extensions for smart agriculture; tools for creating and validating machine learning solutions in 5G/6G networks; and testbeds for explainable algorithms for intelligent network and service management.
In this area, the INES project has contributed to the creation and validation of an end-to-end smart network designed for the development of scenarios integrating IoT and cyber-physical systems, such as industrial and urban environments or critical infrastructure. This network has strengthened IMDEA Networks' capacity to offer advanced experimental tools to the scientific community as part of its national and international collaborations.
Furthermore, a fully operational quantum communications infrastructure has been implemented, integrated into the experimental ecosystem, enabling research in quantum cryptography, secure key distribution, quantum consensus strategies for open quantum systems and evaluation of controlled attack scenarios, anticipating the security requirements of future 6G networks.
“The Institute’s integrated connectivity and computing infrastructure is now ready to support the next generation of research aimed at systems for service deployment and intelligent orchestration in 6G networks and new services, enabling rapid prototyping, rigorous experimentation, reduced knowledge transfer time and a significant shortening of time-to-market,” emphasizes Vincenzo Mancuso, Research Associate Professor at the Institute and Principal Investigator at INES.
An investment with long-term impact The set of infrastructures developed constitutes an open, flexible and cross-cutting laboratory, which is already being used as a basis for current and future research projects, as well as for collaborations with universities and international partners, and which will continue to support new initiatives during the next decade.
With the completion of the ADVANCE-6G, TEST-6G and INES projects, IMDEA Networks reinforces its position as a benchmark center for research in communications networks, increases its competitiveness in the European sphere and contributes directly to the development of key technologies for the digital transformation of society.
