The Second WACE WebAssembly, Cloud and Edge: Shaping the Future of Computing (WACE) Workshop

Co-located with the ACM Middleware Conference 2026

The Bytecode Alliance in partnership with Ghent University - imec and the ELASTIC project is pleased to organize and host the second WACE workshop: WebAssembly, Cloud and Edge: Shaping the Future of Computing (WACE).

The workshop will be co-located with the ACM Middleware conference 2026, taking place 14th – 18th December 2026 in Tarragona, Spain.

We invite submissions of papers and welcome presenters and participants to join us at this exciting event.

Submission and Important Dates

• Submission deadline: 17 September 2026
• Acceptance Notification: 12 October 2026
• Camera-ready deadline: 16 October 2026
• Submission site: https://wace2026.hotcrp.com/

Topics of Interest

Lightweight and cross-platform software distribution, sandboxing and orchestration are important challenges for cloud-native and edge systems. The cloud-edge continuum paradigm specifically introduces additional requirements such as strong isolation guarantees between tenants, seamless migration across multiple CPU architectures, and cold start times in the order of milliseconds. An increasing threat landscape and complex software supply chains introduce the need for high-performance software sandboxing in a large breadth of use-cases ranging from in-application plugin frameworks to microcontrollers with Real-Time Operating Systems (RTOS). Emerging technologies such as WebAssembly and MicroVMs are promising technologies to address these challenges.

This workshop invites research aiming to address the challenges of software distribution and sandboxing across cloud, edge and IoT platforms. Topics include:

• Containerization, and virtualization technologies such as WebAssembly and MicroVMs
• Cross-platform application distribution on architectures such as RISC-V and ARM
• Hardware abstraction and access layers such as the WebAssembly System Interface (WASI)
• Workload orchestration and resource management across the Edge-Cloud Continuum.
• Application composability and universal plugin systems, including for microcontrollers and real-time operating systems.
• Software isolation and access control, including in multi-tenant systems

Author Instructions

We invite original research papers that have not been previously published and are not currently under review for publication elsewhere.

• Submitted workshop papers should be no longer than 6 pages in the standard ACM format.
• The review process is single blind
• Submit your article here: https://wace2026.hotcrp.com/
• Note that at least one author of each accepted workshop paper must hold a full pre-conference registration.
• For the camera-ready instructions, please visit the camera-ready instructions page: https://middleware-conf.github.io/2026/camera-ready-instructions/

A “Best Paper Award” certificate will be conferred on the author(s) of a paper presented at the workshop, selected by the Chairs based on scientific significance, originality and outstanding technical quality of the paper, as assessed also by the evaluations of the members of the Program Committee.

Workshop Description

The workshop will be organised as a half-day event and will contain a mix of invited talks from industry experts and peer-reviewed scientific contributions. This format was chosen to increase interaction between industry and academia, and attract a diverse audience.

The workshop programme will include:

• Scientific technical sessions with peer-reviewed workshop contributions that will be published as part of the conference proceedings.
• Invited talks from industry and ecosystem experts, focusing on real-world deployments, architectures, and lessons learned. These talks will not be included in the conference proceedings.

Organizing Committee

• General Chair: Dr. Merlijn Sebrechts (Ghent University, imec) merlijn.sebrechts@ugent.be
• David Bryant (Bytecode Alliance)
• Despina Kopanaki (Technical University of Crete)
• Prof. Dr. Sotiris Ioannidis (Technical University of Crete)

Technical Program Committee

• Dr. Dhouha Ayed (Thales SIX)
• Prof. Mats Brorsson (KTH Royal Institute of Technology / University of Luxembourg)
• Dr. George Christou (Technical University of Crete)
• Dr. Gregory Chrysos (Technical University of Crete)
• Dr. Lachlan J. Gunn (Aalto University)
• Prof. Sotiris Ioannidis (Technical University of Crete)
• Ing. Michiel Van Kenhove (imec)
• Dr. Eva Papadogiannaki (Technical University of Crete)
• Dr. José Pedro Pereira dos Santos (Ghent University – imec)
• Dr. Merlijn Sebrechts (imec)

Supported By

Funding Acknowledgement

The ELASTIC project has received funding from the Smart Networks and Services Joint Undertaking (SNS JU) under the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No. 101139067.