Concrete is easy to use: cement, water and aggregates are mixed and placed in a container of the desired shape. The reaction of the cement with the water, i.e., hydration, then turns the workable mix into a solid, load-bearing material. However, while from easy-to-use in practice it is often inferred that something is simple, concrete and cement hydration have proven to be rather complex to understand and describe. Knowledge and methods from various disciplines are required to understand, describe and predict the hydration process in terms of models for application and use in scientific and engineering contexts. Methods from computational mechanics, such as multi-scale homogenization, are used to relate the phases present (solid and liquid phases) and where and how they are arranged (microstructure) to the overall material behavior or vice versa. The required input for this in turn might be derived using one or multiple models, e.g., thermodynamic models for determining the solid phase assemblage and liquid phase composition present. While already complex, these models need to be superposed by kinetic information to incorporate time-dependency. In current practice, models are typically developed and communicated in a single-disciplinary environment, which results in a lack of interoperability and limits information transfer. Holistic, linked modeling approaches can offer new perspectives and interdisciplinary understanding, opening new ways to address long-standing, current, and future questions. A recent multi-disciplinary framework for the modeling of early-age elastic properties of cement paste [1] introduced time-dependence in the multi-scale material model by describing the degree of hydration as a function of time following the sigmoidal five-parameter logistic function coupled with thermodynamic modeling. The results reveal current shortcomings in the modeling of early-age hydration up to 24 h and resulting material behaviour across disciplines, e.g., methodological uncertainties, lacking data, or insufficient model accuracy. At the same time, the results demonstrate how macroscopic material performance, e.g., stiffness, can be derived accurately with regard to both the quantitative magnitude and temporal resolution. Hence, showing the need for cooperative multi-disciplinary research to develop an improved modeling framework for early-age hydration kinetic, microstructural and micromechanical models. [1] https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cemconres.2025.107830