The Gaia-X Summit 2024 in Helsinki was held under the motto “Empowering Global Data Spaces, Shaping Tomorrow's Cloud Infrastructure” and marked a milestone in the development of sovereign and interoperable data ecosystems. With more than 600 participants from over 40 countries, the event showcased groundbreaking progress in Gaia-X's mission to secure digital sovereignty and foster global collaboration. The summit was opened by Lulu Ranne, the Finnish Minister of Transport and Communications.
Gaia-X and souv. data rooms are implemented
One of the highlights of the summit was the presentation of the Loire Release software components for the Gaia-X Digital Clearing Houses (GXDCHs). These open-source components enable automated compliance based on the Gaia-X Trust Framework and promote trust and interoperability between ecosystems.
A total of EUR 3 billion is already flowing into a large number of data space projects from EU funding programs such as Horizon or the Digital Europe Programme (DEP). Together with national investments by the member states, this is significantly advancing the development of secure data spaces in Europe. In Austria alone, a total of around EUR 43.5 million has been made available for projects via calls for proposals and funding since 2019.
The EU Commission also provides support through the development and procurement of special open source solutions such as SIMPL, a smart middleware platform that enables cloud-to-edge federations and thus optimally supports the creation of common European data spaces. In addition to the software, Gaia-X presented extensive collaborations and new initiatives. Based on European values such as data protection, data sovereignty and open standards, Gaia-X is working together with organizations such as the International Data Spaces Association (IDSA), the Big Data Value Association (BDVA), the FIWARE Foundation and the EU Commission, which provides support through special funding programs, to develop standards and technologies that support secure and sovereign data exchange and aim to reduce monopoly-like data management structures and the associated lock-in effects.
New Gaia-X Digital Clearing Houses have also been announced - Proximus (Belgium) and Neusta Aerospace (Germany) will be involved in implementing and strengthening the Gaia-X infrastructure in the future. Additions such as these are important steps towards enabling reliable, secure and scalable data exchange within and outside Europe.
Read the full german article here.