New look - same vision! BeyondXR Cluster with a fresh identity
BeyondXR Cluster presents its renewed brand identity, reflecting the cluster’s ongoing development, its projects, and its vision for the future of Extended Reality (XR).
The refreshed visual identity marks an evolution in how the cluster presents itself and communicates its work in the XR ecosystem. Alongside the updated branding, the cluster’s projects have also been refreshed, reflecting its continued engagement with emerging technologies and new opportunities in Extended Reality.
This renewed identity represents a step forward in the cluster’s development, reinforcing its focus on innovation, collaboration, and the exploration of XR applications across different fields.
Stay tuned for more updates on BeyondXR Cluster’s activities, projects, and upcoming initiatives.
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Connecting Edge AI and Extended Reality - IRIS-XR at EEAI 2026
How can Edge AI contribute to more responsive, intelligent and human-centred Extended Reality (XR) experiences?
Answer to this question was one of the key topics highlighted by Dr Alain Pagani, Coordinator of the IRIS-XR project from the German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), during the EEAI 2026 Conference.
Project Pitches session created an opportunity for Dr Pagani to introduce IRIS-XR and explore the connection between Edge Artificial Intelligence and the next generation of XR technologies. His presentation highlighted how bringing AI processing closer to users and devices can help reduce latency, enable faster responses and support more natural interactions in immersive environments.
These challenges are central to IRIS-XR, which is developing advanced technologies for more intuitive and adaptive XR experiences. By combining innovative display systems, eye-tracking technologies, event-based sensing and AI-driven multimodal data processing, the project aims to improve how XR devices understand and respond to users' needs.
The EEAI 2026 Conference provides a platform for researchers, industry experts and technology developers to exchange knowledge and explore the latest developments in Edge AI. Through presentations, discussions and project pitches, the event highlights innovative research, practical applications and opportunities for collaboration across the European AI ecosystem.
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IRIS-XR joins forces with European XR projects through the BeyondXR Cluster
Press Release, 22.09.2026
IRIS-XR has joined the BeyondXR Cluster, connecting the Horizon Europe project with a growing community of European research and innovation initiatives working together to advance the next generation of Extended Reality (XR) technologies and applications.
The BeyondXR Cluster brings together a group of pioneering EU research and innovation projects. The cluster aims to reshape learning and training by integrating advanced technologies such as Extended Reality (XR), Artificial Intelligence (AI), robotics, and immersive technologies into transformative educational solutions, and to address broader applications of XR and emerging technologies, including cross-industry collaboration, immersive media, manufacturing innovation, creative and cultural advancements, and the social acceptance of XR systems.
By fostering synergies among projects, BeyondXR seeks to revolutionize not only learning but also how XR and AI technologies are applied across various sectors to drive innovation and societal impact.
Bringing IRIS-XR expertise to the European XR ecosystem
Launched in June 2026, IRIS-XR brings together eight partners from five European countries to develop an integrated XR hardware-software platform combining advanced displays, embedded eye tracking, event-based sensing and AI-powered multimodal interaction. The technologies will be validated in three real-world areas: healthcare, aviation and automotive design.
Within the BeyondXR Cluster, IRIS-XR will exchange expertise in addressing some of today’s key XR challenges, including visual realism, interaction latency, energy efficiency, accessibility and user trust. Its strong focus on human-centred XR, trustworthy AI, privacy and safety, together with its work on interoperability and standardisation, provides opportunities for knowledge exchange and collaboration with other European XR projects.
“Building strong connections across the European XR ecosystem is essential to maximise the impact of our work. Joining the BeyondXR Cluster gives IRIS-XR a valuable opportunity to create synergies with complementary initiatives, exchange knowledge and best practices, engage with a wider community of stakeholders, and explore new opportunities for collaboration that can extend the project’s reach and impact.”
Carmen Serna, IRIS-XR Communication Manager and Innovation Manager at AUSTRALO
Collaboration within the cluster will also help participating projects explore common technological and societal challenges, identify potential synergies and increase the visibility and impact of European research in XR and immersive technologies.
Discover the vision behind IRIS-XR
To learn more about the project, Dr Alain Pagani, IRIS-XR Project Coordinator and Deputy Director at DFKI, shares the vision behind IRIS-XR in a dedicated interview. He explains how XR works today and discusses the project’s goals and ambitions, the limitations it aims to overcome, the challenges ahead and its expected impact. The interview offers a closer look at how IRIS-XR intends to make future XR experiences more realistic, responsive, intuitive and accessible.
IRIS-XR at a glance
- Development of a next-generation XR hardware-software platform.
- Advanced XR display technologies for enhanced visual quality and lower energy consumption.
- Integrated eye tracking and event-based sensing for natural interaction.
- AI-powered multimodal interaction that combines gaze, gestures, and contextual information.
- Validation in healthcare, flight simulation, and automotive design environments.
- Strong focus on accessibility, ethics, privacy, and trustworthy AI.
- Contributions to European interoperability and standardisation initiatives.
Project partners: DEUTSCHES FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM FUR KUNSTLICHE INTDE (Coordinator), VARJO TECHNOLOGIES, VOXELSENSORS, INSTITUTO TECNOLOGICO DE INFORMATICA, Reiser Simulation and Training, MERCEDES-BENZ AG, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN, AUSTRALO
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Funding note:
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement N° 101298672.
Media contact:
Carmen Serna
Project & Innovation Manager, AUSTRALO
The Human Side of Future Virtual Worlds - IRIS-XR at the OPENVERSE Summit
On 10 September 2026, Patricia Pons Tomás from ITI, an IRIS-XR project partner, participated in the OPENVERSE Summit 2026, contributing to a roundtable on the future of European Virtual Worlds and the Web 4.0 roadmap.
The discussion focused on the research, innovation and policy priorities needed to develop human-centric, trustworthy and sustainable immersive ecosystems, drawing on key priorities identified by the OPENVERSE project.
Designing XR around people
Patricia's contribution focused on the human side of immersive technologies. Next-generation XR systems increasingly use technologies such as eye tracking, gesture tracking and affective sensing, creating new possibilities for more responsive and personalised experiences. At the same time, their development requires careful consideration of trust, safety, wellbeing and accessibility across different users and contexts.
She also shared perspectives from work in sensitive application areas, particularly mental health, where ethical design, inclusivity, and user empowerment are especially important. Looking ahead to the next generation of human-centred XR, Patricia emphasised::
"The future of XR lies in empathic, adaptive systems built through active co-design. We must move beyond viewing users merely as consumers and actively involve them as co-creators of XR experiences. Through participatory design and by evaluating users' real-time emotional and cognitive responses when using an immersive system, we lay the groundwork for intuitive technologies that adapt to the diverse physical and cognitive needs of everyone, from specialized workers to patients."
Connecting the discussion with IRIS-XR
These topics are closely linked to the objectives of IRIS-XR, which is developing new hardware, sensing and AI technologies for next-generation extended reality. Our project explores solutions including display-embedded infrared eye tracking, event-based sensing and AI-driven multimodal fusion, while considering how XR technologies can better respond to users and their needs.
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Hand tracking research from IRIS-XR takes the stage at SIGGRAPH 2026
IRIS-XR was represented at SIGGRAPH 2026, one of the world's leading conferences on computer graphics and interactive techniques, held in Los Angeles on 21 July 2026.
Bringing together around 4,000 researchers, technology developers, and industry professionals, the conference provides a platform for sharing the latest advances in graphics, computer vision, artificial intelligence, and immersive technologies.
The project was represented by Dr. Alain Pagani and Christen Millerdurai from the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), together with Denny Rönngren from Varjo.
During the "Humans & Hands – Reconstruction" technical session, researchers from DFKI, in collaboration with Rhineland-Palatinate Technical University of Kaiserslautern-Landau (RPTU) and the Max Planck Institute for Informatics (MPII), presented the paper "EgoForce: Forearm-Guided Camera-Space 3D Hand Pose from a Monocular Egocentric Camera".
The research introduces a monocular camera-based method for robust 3D hand pose estimation in egocentric scenarios. By improving camera-based hand understanding, the work contributes to more natural interaction in extended reality, where accurate hand tracking is essential for intuitive user experiences.
Beyond presenting the research, SIGGRAPH provided an opportunity to engage with the international computer graphics and XR community, exchange ideas on sensing technologies and immersive systems, and discuss future directions for AI-based perception and interaction. These discussions support the objectives of IRIS-XR, which focuses on advancing next-generation XR technologies through innovative sensing and intelligent interaction.
Reflecting on the event, Dr. Alain Pagani, IRIS-XR Project Coordinator and Principal Researcher and Deputy Director at DFKI, said:
"SIGGRAPH offered an excellent opportunity to present EgoForce to the international computer graphics and XR community. The discussions confirmed the importance of robust and unobtrusive hand tracking for the next generation of immersive systems and provided valuable input for the work conducted in IRIS-XR."
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How can XR devices understand hand movements with a single camera? Find out in the EgoForce Conference paper!
Researchers from the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), Rhineland-Palatinate Technical University of Kaiserslautern-Landau (RPTU), and the Max Planck Institute for Informatics (MPII) presented their latest research at SIGGRAPH 2026 on 21 July 2026 in Los Angeles, USA.
The paper "EgoForce: Forearm-Guided Camera-Space 3D Hand Pose from a Monocular Egocentric Camera" introduces a framework for reconstructing the absolute 3D pose and shape of the hands using only a single head-mounted RGB camera.
Advancing egocentric hand tracking
Accurate hand tracking is essential for natural interaction in extended reality. EgoForce addresses this challenge by incorporating forearm information to improve depth estimation and hand pose reconstruction while supporting fisheye, perspective, and wide field-of-view camera models within a single architecture. The framework combines a unified hand-arm architecture (HALO), a differentiable forearm representation, and a ray-space solver for accurate camera-space 3D hand pose estimation across different optical systems.
Results and relevance for IRIS-XR
The framework was evaluated on several egocentric benchmarks, achieving state-of-the-art performance. On the HOT3D dataset, EgoForce reduced camera-space joint error by up to 28% compared with previous methods while demonstrating robust tracking during hand-object interactions and severe occlusions. The system also runs interactively on smart glasses using a single RGB camera.
The research reflects several technological directions that are central to IRIS-XR, including AI-based perception, lightweight sensing, and natural interaction for the next generation of XR devices.
Acknowledgments
This work was partially funded by the Horizon Europe programme under the projects dAIEDGE, Grant Agreement No. 101120726, and IRIS-XR, Grant Agreement No. 101298672. The authors thank the anonymous reviewers for their valuable feedback.
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Kick-off: IRIS-XR officially launches in Europe to build the future of Extended Reality
The IRIS-XR consortium officially gathered in Kaiserslautern, Germany, for our project's Kick-off Meeting. Hosted by DFKI (German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence), the project coordinator, the event marked the beginning of an ambitious three-year journey to develop the next generation of human-centred Extended Reality (XR) technologies.
The meeting brought together leading European experts across XR hardware, artificial intelligence, event-based sensing, optics, healthcare, aviation, and automotive innovation to align on our roadmap, vision, and technical objectives.
The vision: more natural, intelligent, and trustworthy XR
Current XR solutions face major hurdles, from visual lag and high energy consumption to user discomfort and privacy concerns. IRIS-XR is designed to overcome these limitations.
The project will create a new hardware-software platform designed to deliver more immersive, responsive, energy-efficient, and accessible XR experiences. By making interaction more intuitive and adaptive, IRIS-XR will help bring XR technologies closer to the needs of real users and professional environments.
From research to real-world impact
The project's innovations will be validated in three pilot areas: mental health and rehabilitation, professional flight simulation, and automotive design reviews. Alongside technological development, IRIS-XR places strong emphasis on accessibility, inclusiveness, privacy, and compliance with European regulations.
Alongside technological breakthroughs, IRIS-XR is deeply committed to accessibility, inclusivity, data privacy, and strict compliance with European standards (including the GDPR and the EU AI Act). By championing trustworthy AI and open interoperability standards, we aim to strengthen Europe's competitive edge in the global spatial computing ecosystem.
Key project highlights
- Development of a next-generation XR hardware-software platform
- Advanced XR display technologies for enhanced visual quality and lower energy consumption
- Integrated eye tracking and event-based sensing for natural interaction
- AI-powered multimodal interaction combining gaze, gesture, and contextual information
- Validation in healthcare, flight simulation, and automotive design environments
- Strong focus on accessibility, ethics, privacy, and trustworthy AI
- Contributions to European interoperability and standardisation initiatives
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