Innovative computing technologies for data acquisition and processing
for the High-Luminosity Large Hadron Collider and beyond

The Next Generation Triggers project, or NextGen, started in January 2024 as a collaboration between CERN (the Experimental Physics, Theoretical Physics and Information Technology Departments) and the ATLAS and CMS experiments. The key objective of the five-year NextGen project is to get more physics information out of the HL-LHC data. The hope is to uncover as-yet-unseen phenomena by more efficiently selecting interesting physics events while rejecting background noise. Scientists will make use of neural network optimisation, quantum-inspired algorithms, high-performance computing and field-programmable gate array (FPGA) techniques to improve the theoretical modelling and optimise their tools in the search for ultra-rare events.

The foundations of the NextGen project were laid in 2022 when a group of private donors, including former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, visited CERN. This first inspiring visit eventually evolved into an agreement with the Eric and Wendy Schmidt Fund for Strategic Innovation, approved by the CERN Council in October 2023, to fund a project that would pave the way for the future trigger systems at the HL-LHC and beyond: NextGen was born.

All results produced by the NextGen project are released in compliance with the CERN Open Science policy and are made available to the High-Energy Physics and scientific communities at large.