The two Gaia-X projects Sovereign Cloud Stack (SCS) and Gaia-X Federation Services (GXFS), which are funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, are combined and tested together on open infrastructure in the now beginning implementation phase.

On 24 February 2022, Dr. Franziska Brantner of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK), formally approved the funding for the Car Repair 4.0 consortium.  The platform is designed to enable independent car repair shops and SMEs to use AI-based diagnostic procedures to repair and maintain vehicles.

T-Systems International, DAASI International, BigchainDB, Fraunhofer AISEC, ecsec and XLAB are the first to start with GXFS as implementation partners. A series of explainer videos are being released for the general public, and a new blog series about Gaia-X as well as a monthly newsletter keeps interested parties up to date.

The starting signal has been given for the Car Repair 4.0 (Autowerkstatt 4.0) project. In it, a consortium of partner companies and research institutes is developing a Germany-wide platform for the trustworthy exchange of industry-specific vehicle data. With the help of the platform, car repair shops can use intelligent fault diagnosis systems

This year, it’s not just the Covid-19 pandemic, but also the threatening climate change which will continue to drive forward digital transformation in the economy and society. “Digitalisation is part of the solution to many challenges,” says eco Chair of the Board Oliver Süme.

Milestone for Gaia-X: The implementation phase for the Federation Services has now started. A nine-page white paper has been published to further explain the features and benefits of Federation Services as the foundation of Gaia-X. This is now available to all interested parties for download from the GXFS website.

Democratising national data marketplaces that make everyone winners, not just individuals – one of the focal points at the Gaia-X Summit 2021 was the difference Gaia-X is making with its foundation of European values and standards. Andreas Weiss (eco) presented the results of his work under the congress motto “Here to deliver”.

eco Chair of the Board Oliver Süme is a member of the newly founded Mobility Data Space Expert Council, which will be presented this week at the ITS World Congress in Hamburg. “The mobility of the future is digital and connected,” says Oliver Süme.  

Development of a Digital Responsibility Guide for Gaia-X as first project objective Trust is the key to successful digitalisation. eco – Association of the Internet Industry has been advocating digitalisation with responsibility and in accordance with social values and standards for over 25 years. In order to push...

An interview with Dr. Stefan Igel, COO at Stackable GmbH

On the ICT summer tour, Prof. Dr Andreas Pinkwart, Minister for Digital and Economic Affairs in North Rhine-Westphalia, visited the eco Association on 11 August.  The key developments in digitalisation and the digital economy in NRW were discussed: innovative digital business models, IT security, mobile working and digital education.

Gaia-X is driving the data economy – and putting the economy to the test. “Digital value creation relies on cooperation, collaboration and coopetition,” says Michael Jochem, Member of the Board of Directors Gaia-X Association for Data and Cloud (AISBL) in this interview. He explains what data and agriculture have in common, and why the value of data must be measurable for Gaia-X to take off.

Summa one of 24 new Gaia-X AISBL Board Members DE-CIX as a blueprint for other Internet Exchange operators Harald A. Summa, CEO of DE-CIX, the operator of the world’s leading Internet Exchange in Frankfurt am Main, was one of 24 people elected to the Gaia-X AISBL Board during the organisation’s first general assembly...

The project partners, coordinated by the eco Association, have completed the specification of the first four Gaia-X Federation Services. These form the technical basis for the development of a European data infrastructure for the secure digitalisation and networking of different participants.

As the Hannover Trade Fair 2021 has demonstrated, Internet-based solutions are gaining relevance and momentum in German industry. This means that increasing swathes of data are being generated by European companies, organisations and administrations. In the coming years, Gaia-X will help to maintain complete control over this data on a long-term basis and enable independent decisions to be made on who has access to it.

eco – Association of the Internet Industry has taken on the specification of the GAIA-X Federation Services and has set up a Project Management Office (PMO) and defined five work packages. The German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) is funding the project with around 13.5 million Euro.

Andreas Weiss, Head of Digital Business Models at the eco Association, explains in an interview why we need a trustworthy digital space that is consistently oriented towards European standards and values.

Andreas Weiss on Uptime Punks Podcast – offering an update on the GAIA-X project.

The motto of the German 2020 Digital Summit was “More Sustainability by Means of Digitalisation”. A large chunk of the agenda was taken up by the topic of GAIA-X. Harald A. Summa in interview on the initiative’s prospects and whether digital infrastructures can contribute to a more sustainable life and economy.

The quintessential message of eco at the German federal government's Digital Summit, titled “More Sustainability by Means of Digitalisation”: Digitalisation holds enormous potential for sustainability and climate protection.

Politics, science and industry are currently meeting together at the GAIA-X Summit. The aim of the online summit: “We’re now laying the groundwork for all the services and functions that GAIA-X will offer going forward,” says Andreas Weiss from the eco Association. In his keynote, he's delving into what the industry can expect from the initiative.

Reducing technological dependencies and networking linear value-added chains in the digital single market more easily – GAIA-X creates the self-determined and sovereign data space for this. Andreas Weiss spoke to a committee of the German parliament about how exactly the initiative will do so.

On Wednesday, 28 Oct. 2020, the German government's Digital Agenda Committee discussed data sovereignty in connection with the GAIA-X project. Andreas Weiss, eco Head of Digital Business Models, took part in the committee’s technical discussion.

At a virtual conference of European digital ministers being held today, an agreement is to be reached on the merging of European cloud capacities. For the Association of the Internet Industry, GAIA-X is considered to be a flagship project in this realm, offering the potential to fully exploit the opportunities of the data economy while at the same time making a reality out of the Digital Single Market.

Climate, economy and coronavirus – in her first State of the Union address, Ursula von der Leyen not only addressed the major challenges facing the EU, but also solutions such as GAIA-X. OVHcloud and T-Systems are now exploring for the first time how the GAIA-X guidelines can be translated into concrete offers.

On 04.06.2020, an event took place in the premises of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) in Berlin to present the current status of GAIA-X. The German Minister for Economic Affairs, Peter Altmaier, and his French colleague, Bruno Le Maire, emphasised the great importance of an open, transparent and secure European data infrastructure.

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.”

On 4 June 2020, Peter Altmaier, German Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy, and Bruno Le Maire, French Minister of Economics and Finance, discussed the GAIA-X venture. Andreas Weiss, Director of EuroCloud Germany, participated in the subsequent Virtual Expert Forum.

eco is celebrating its 25 years of existence this year under the motto of “Internet with Responsibility”. At the same time, the concept of digital sovereignty is being discussed increasingly in the media, politics, and parts of the Internet industry. But what does digital sovereignty actually mean and how does it relate to the anniversary motto? We asked Alexander Rabe, Managing Director of eco – Association of the Internet Industry, for his thoughts.

Thomas Niessen of the Trusted Cloud Competence Network and Andreas Weiss of the eco Association and Eurocloud Deutschland_eco outline aspects being considered in the framework for assessment of GAIA-X providers. Read more on dotmagazine.