The applications of a national infrastructure of drones are numerous. From supporting supply chains and public works maintenance to minimizing damage from natural disasters, non-military drones have the potential to revolutionize our productive capacity. For this potential to become a reality, however, U.S. policy and scientific funding must align with the developments of drone computing over the next decade. To that end, the Computing Community Consortium’s (CCC) newest report, Computing on the Fly: Navigating a Vision for the Future of Drone Computing, lays out recommendations for maximizing the potential of drone computing. The findings are informed by the December 2025 Computing on the Fly workshop, which convened experts across computing […]
Computing Community Consortium Blog
The goal of the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) is to catalyze the computing research community to debate longer range, more audacious research challenges; to build consensus around research visions; to evolve the most promising visions toward clearly defined initiatives; and to work with the funding organizations to move challenges and visions toward funding initiatives. The purpose of this blog is to provide a more immediate, online mechanism for dissemination of visioning concepts and community discussion/debate about them.
U.S. Leadership in the Future of Drone Computing: A Roadmap to 2035
August 28th, 2026 / in CCC, NSF, policy, robotics / by Marla MackoulThe CCC Task Force Behind CACM’s New “Balancing Sustainable Computing and Computing for Sustainability” Article
August 25th, 2026 / in CCC, climate, Community Chats / by Marla Mackoul“Balancing Sustainable Computing and Computing for Sustainability,” a new Communications of the ACM (CACM) opinion article, asks us to look at the issue of sustainability in computing research from two complementary perspectives: sustainable computing and computing for sustainability. The article was instigated and authored by a group of Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Council Members passionate about the topic, who brought together experts across disciplines to explore how computing can both mitigate its effects on the environment and support sustainability work. The complete list of authors includes: Michela Taufer, University of Tennessee Knoxville Chandra Krintz, UC Santa Barbara Elizabeth Bradley, University of Colorado Boulder Michael Crowley, University of Southern California Tevfik […]
NSF Funds Four More Years of CCC Visioning
August 20th, 2026 / in Announcements, CCC / by Marla MackoulThe Computing Community Consortium (CCC) is pleased to announce that the National Science Foundation (NSF) has officially awarded CCC’s renewal proposal for four more years of visioning work. The renewal means CCC’s visioning activities with the computing research community will continue, supporting the evolving field through 2030 on this new grant. CCC’s Mission What are the next big computing research challenges — the ones that will define the future of the field, galvanize researchers, and spark investment and public support? CCC mobilizes the computing research community to address these challenges. Since 2006, CCC has served as a bridge between computing experts across disciplines and sectors, convening them for visioning activities […]
Industry Opportunities for Advancing Non-Military Drone Computing
August 13th, 2026 / in CCC, robotics / by Marla MackoulComputing on the Fly: Navigating a Vision for the Future of Drone Computing, the Computing Community Consortium’s (CCC) latest report, presents the benefits of advancing the United States’s non-military drone infrastructure, with numerous potential benefits to industry. Drones have the capacity to provide large-scale support to supply chains (particularly rural routes), for example, as well as revolutionize agricultural efficiency. By 2035, these benefits can be made tangible. Computing on the Fly also goes one stop further, laying out the exact ways to make this happen. Below, find a summary of the ways current industry efforts can advance non-military drone computing. Key Challenges in Advancing Drone Computing The report identifies twelve […]
Inspiring Research Happening Across the Computing Community
August 7th, 2026 / in CCC / by Marla MackoulIn early July, the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) released its very first Call for Innovative Research Visions (CIRV). This call was intended to surface some of the most visionary computing research happening today, within both academic and industry environments. The input CCC received from the computing research community showed what the community sees as important, where time and energy is being focused, and what projects researchers are proudest of. Below, discover three of the most visionary projects submitted to CIRV. Selected Research Projects Computational Animal Communication Led by Kenny Q. Zhu, University of Texas at Arlington Recent advances in self-supervised learning, multimodal foundation models, and web-scale data collection create an […]
The Research Required for the Next Decade of Drone Technology
August 5th, 2026 / in CCC, workshop reports / by Marla MackoulThe Computing Community Consortium’s (CCC) latest report, Computing on the Fly: Navigating a Vision for the Future of Drone Computing, presents the far-reaching potential of non-military drone infrastructure, from ecological management to supply chain support to boosting agricultural efficiency to recording life’s most important moments. This is potential that can be realized by 2035, the new report asserts, presenting a roadmap for how to make it so. Key Challenges in Advancing Drone Computing The report identifies twelve key technical challenges in which drone computing must advance in order to support drones as part of our national infrastructure in the next ten years. These areas include: Scaling to millions of drones […]
