On 4 June 2020, the German Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy, Peter Altmaier, and his French counterpart Bruno Le Maire officially presented the technical concept and future organizational structure of the GAIA-X infrastructure and data network at a digital conference.
eco – Association of the Internet Industry has supported the concept of a sovereign European data infrastructure from the very beginning and actively accompanied the political dialogue around the project for digital sovereignty and innovation of the European economy.
“Europe will benefit greatly in the long term from a secure, sovereign and powerful digital infrastructure that not only facilitates access to data, but also its processing and storage”, says eco Chair Oliver J. Süme. “GAIA-X paves the way for a new level of digital sovereignty, which at the same time goes hand in hand with high European data protection requirements and reliable IT security.” Süme also welcomes the fact that the project initiated from Europe also includes providers from the global market.
As the sole shareholder of the world’s largest Internet Exchange DE-CIX in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, eco itself is part of the industry.
Süme evaluates the fact that DE-CIX has now become an official founding member of the GAIA-X entity positively: “DE-CIX as well as other digital infrastructure operators are making it possible for a vital ecosystem to emerge in Europe, through which digital innovations and business models can be further advanced”, says Süme. “It is therefore only logical that initiatives such as GAIA-X will give operators of data centres and cloud infrastructures in Europe greater visibility and a stronger position in international competition in the future. This is also how we started 25 years ago with the Internet and the foundation of DE-CIX, which is now the largest Internet node in the world.”
