Gaia-X live in action at the Hannover Messe

From 17 to 21 April 2023, around 130,000 visitors in Hannover could see first-hand just how well Gaia-X has taken off. During the trade fair, a large number of interested visitors came to the joint "Industry 4.0 platform" stand to learn how the Gaia-X Federation Services (GXFS) and many other Gaia-X projects work in practice. Using practical use cases, the various teams demonstrated the options Gaia-X offers for new digital ecosystems.

As the world’s leading industrial trade fair, Hannover Messe 2023 focused on the theme “Industrial Transformation – Making the Difference”. Just how well Gaia-X contributes to the industry’s digital transformation was demonstrated by the various sub-exhibitors at the joint stand of the Industry 4.0 platform of the Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection (BMWK). Alongside the Gaia-X Hub Deutschland and the Gaia-X European Association for Data and Cloud (AISBL), GXFS presented demonstrations of the service components developed as part of the GXFS-DE project. Specifically, the GXFS-DE team presented a so-called workflow engine that enables the automated mapping of onboarding processes in the Gaia-X ecosystem. Visitors were also able to experience a benchmark implementation of identity management based on self-sovereign identities (SSI).

“After our successful appearance at Hannover Messe 2022 last year, what we noticed this year is that almost everyone has a good basic understanding of Gaia-X and is familiar with its concepts. There are many questions out there about the current development status, functions and possible applications of Gaia-X and GXFS. Our demos clearly showed how GXFS can be applied in practice – for example, in authenticating identities,” says Emma Wehrwein, GXFS-DE Project Manager at eco – Association of the Internet Industry.

Vivien Witt, GXFS-DE Project Manager and head of the dissemination sector, goes on to say: “Smaller IT providers in particular approached us at the trade fair and showed great interest in Gaia-X. We are very pleased to see that GXFS-DE is being availed of in practice. What’s very positive to observe is that small and medium-sized companies in particular want to get involved in Gaia-X and can pick up on the business potential in this field. This will be essential in order to bring Gaia-X to the wider market.”

Robert Habeck and international business representatives at the stand

The most high-profile visitor at the stand was Robert Habeck, German Federal Minister of Economics, who was welcomed by the GXFS-DE team. Andreas Weiss, GXFS Project Manager and Managing Director at eco, guided the Federal Minister of Economics around the GXFS stand and explained how the Gaia-X Federation Services can be used to establish data-based business models. A number of ministry representatives were also in attendance, including Ernst Stöckl-Pukall, Head of the Department for Digitalisation and Industry 4.0. High-ranking international delegations – for example, from Taiwan, South Korea and Japan – also followed the lead of the Minister of Economics and got to learn about GXFS.

As a representative of GXFS, Andreas Weiss was also present at the Leaders’ Dialogue 2023. At the high-level event, he met with leaders from politics and business to discuss relevant developments and trends in Industry 4.0.

GXFS presented as a kickstarter for the Gaia-X ecosystem

Know-how on Gaia-X and GXFS were also at the heart of the very well attended panel discussions. With Emma Wehrwein, GXFS was represented on Wednesday on the panel “Towards a federated industry data ecosystem”, which took place on the Industry 4.0 Conference Stage.

On Friday, Emma Wehrwein, Peter Kraemer and Klaus Ottradovetz responded to questions from the moderator, Vivien Witt, and the visitors at the panel “Gaia-X: Federated data infrastructures as a lever for the digitalisation of European industry”. Andreas Weiss wraps up to say that,“Hannover Messe 2023 was a complete success from my point of view. We made many new contacts, held important discussions and are now planning a further roll-out with Manufacturing-X for interconnected industrial production.”