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.

Digital sovereignty in the form of high-performance and secure digital infrastructures is a key success factor and decisive for the future viability of Germany as a business location. This is the opinion of the overwhelming majority (80 percent) of decision-makers in German companies, according to the results of a current representative survey commissioned by eco.