Gaia-X

Under the Spanish Presidency of the Council of the European Union, the Government of Spain has led the Gaia-X Summit 2023, held in Alicante on November 9 and 10. The event aimed to review the latest advances of Gaia-X in promoting data sovereignty in Europe. As presented on datos.gob.es, Gaia-X is a European private sector initiative for the creation of a federated, open, interoperable, and reversible data infrastructure, fostering digital sovereignty and data availability.

The summit has also served as a space for the exchange of ideas among the leading voices in the European data spaces community, culminating in the presentation of a statement to boost strategic autonomy in cloud computing, data, and artificial intelligence—considered crucial for EU competitiveness. The document, promoted by the State Secretariat for Digitization and Artificial Intelligence, constitutes a joint call for a "more coherent and coordinated" response in the development of programs and projects, both at the European and member state levels, related to data and sector technologies.

To achieve this, the statement advocates for interoperability supported by a robust cloud services infrastructure and the development of high-quality data-based artificial intelligence with a robust governance framework in compliance with European regulatory frameworks. Specifically, it highlights the possibilities offered by Deep Neural Networks, where success relies on three main factors: algorithms, computing capacity, and access to large amounts of data. In this regard, the document emphasizes the need to invest in the latter factor, promoting a neural network paradigm based on high-quality, well-parameterized data in shared infrastructures, not only saving valuable time for researchers but also mitigating environmental degradation by reducing computing needs beyond the brute force paradigm.

For this reason, another aspect addressed in the document is the stimulation of access to data sources from different complementary domains. This would enable a "flexible, dynamic, and highly scalable" data economy to optimize processes, innovate, and/or create new business models.

The call is optimistic about existing European initiatives and programs, starting with the Gaia-X project itself. Other projects highlighted include IPCEI-CIS or the Simpl European project. It also emphasizes the need for "broader and more effective coordination to drive industrial projects, advance the standardization of cloud and reliable data tags, ensuring high levels of cybersecurity, data protection, algorithmic transparency, and portability."

The statement underscores the importance of achieving a single data market that includes data exchange processes under a common governance framework. It values the innovative set of digital and data legislation, such as the Data Act, with the goal of promoting data availability across the Union. The statement is open to new members seeking to advance the promotion of a flexible, dynamic, and highly scalable data economy.

You can read the full document here: The Trinity of Trusted Cloud Data and AI as a Gateway to EU's Competitiveness

On September 11^th, a webinar was held to review Gaia-X, from its foundations, embodied by its architecture and trust model called Trust Framework, to the Federation Services that aim to facilitate and speed up access to the infrastructure, to the catalogue of services that some users (providers) will be able to make available to others (consumers).

The webinar, led by the manager of the Spanish Gaia-X Hub, was led by two experts from the Data Office, who guided the audience through their presentations towards a better understanding of the Gaia-X initiative. At the end of the session, there was a dynamic question and answer session to go into more detail. A recording of this seminar can be accessed from the Hub's official website,[Forging the Future of Federated Data Spaces in Europe | Gaia-X (gaiax.es)]

Gaia-X as a key building block for forging European Data Spaces

Gaia-X emerges as an innovative paradigm to facilitate the integration of IT resources. Based on Web 3.0 technology models, the identification and traceability of different data resources is enabled, from data sets, algorithms, different semantic or other conceptual models, to even underlying technology infrastructure (cloud resources). This serves to make the origin and functioning of these entities visible, thus facilitating transparency and compliance with European regulations and values.

Last March 13th, a session of the Mobility Working Group of the Gaia-X Spain Hub was held, addressing the main challenges of the sector regarding projects related to data sharing and exploitation. The session, which took place at the Technical School of Civil Engineers of the Polytechnic University of Madrid, allowed attendees to learn firsthand about the main challenges of the sector, as well as some of the cutting-edge data projects in the mobility industry. The event was also a meeting point where ideas and reflections were shared among key actors in the sector.

The session began with a presentation from the Ministry of Transport, Mobility, and Urban Agenda, which highlighted the great importance of the National Access Point for Multimodal Transport, a European project that allows all information on passenger transport services in the country to be centralized in a single national point, with the aim of providing the foundation for driving the development of future mobility services.

Next, the Data Office of the State Secretariat for Artificial Intelligence (SEDIA) provided their vision of the Data Spaces development model and the design principles of such spaces aligned with European values. The importance of business networks based on data ecosystems, the intersectoral nature of the Mobility industry, and the significant role of open data in the sector's data spaces were highlighted.

Next, use cases were presented by Vicomtech, Amadeus, i2CAT, and the Alcobendas City Council, which allowed attendees to learn firsthand about some examples of technology use for data sharing projects (both data spaces and data lakes).

Finally, an initial study by the i2CAT Foundation, FACTUAL Consulting, and EIT Urban Mobility on the basic components of future mobility data spaces in Spain was presented. The study, which can be downloaded here in Spanish, addresses the potential of mobility data spaces for the Spanish market. Although it focuses on Spain, it takes a national and international research approach, framed in the European context to establish standards, develop the technical components that enable data spaces, the first flagship projects, and address common challenges to achieve milestones in sustainable mobility in Europe.

The presentations used in the session are available at this link.

Gaia-X represents an innovative paradigm for linking data more closely to the technological infrastructure underneath, so as to ensure the transparency, origin and functioning of these resources. This model allows us to deploy a sovereign and transparent data economy, which respects European fundamental rights, and which in Spain will take shape around the sectoral data spaces (C12.I1 and C14.I2 of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan). These data spaces will be aligned with the European regulatory framework, as well as with governance and instruments designed to ensure interoperability, and on which to articulate the sought-after single data market.

In this sense, Gaia-X interoperability nodes, or Gaia-X Digital Clearing House (GXDCH), aim to offer automatic validation services of interoperability rules to developers and participants of data spaces. The creation of such nodes was announced at the Gaia-X Summit 2022 in Paris last November. The Gaia-X architecture, promoted by the Gaia-X European Association for Data & Cloud AISBL, has established itself as a promising technological alternative for the creation of open and transparent ecosystems of data sets and services.

These ecosystems, federated by nature, will serve to develop the data economy at scale. But in order to do so, a set of minimum rules must be complied with to ensure interoperability between participants. Compliance with these rules is precisely the function of the GXDCH, serving as an "anchor" to deploy certified market services. Therefore, the creation of such a node in Spain is a crucial element for the deployment of federated data spaces at national level, which will stimulate development and innovation around data in an environment of respect for data sovereignty, privacy, transparency and fair competition.

The GXDCH is defined as a node where operational services of an ecosystem compliant with the Gaia-X interoperability rules are provided. Operational services" should be understood as services that are necessary for the operation of a data space, but are not in themselves data sharing services, data exploitation applications or cloud infrastructures. Gaia-X defines six operational services, of which at least two must be part of the mandatory nodes hosting the GXDCHs:

Mandatory services

• Gaia-X Registry: Defined as an immutable, non-repudiable, distributed database with code execution capabilities. Typically it would be a blockchain infrastructure supporting a decentralised identity service ('Self Sovereign Identity') in which, among others, the list of Trust Anchors or other data necessary for the operation of identity management in Gaia-X is stored.
• Gaia-X Compliance Service or Gaia-X Compliance Service: Belongs to the so-called Gaia-X Federation Services and its function is to verify compliance with the minimum interoperability rules defined by the Gaia-X Association (e.g. the Trust Framework).

Optional services

• Self-Descriptions (SDs) or Wizard Edition Service: SDs are verifiable credentials according to the standard defined by the W3C by means of which both the participants of a Gaia-X ecosystem and the products made available by the providers describe themselves. The aforementioned compliance service consists of validating that the SDs comply with the interoperability standards. The Wizard is a convenience service for the creation of Self-Descriptions according to pre-defined schemas.
• Catalogue: Storage service of the service offer available in the ecosystem for consultation.
• e-Wallet: For the management of verifiable credentials (SDs) by participants in a system based on distributed identities.
• Notary Service: Service for issuing verifiable credentials signed by accreditation authorities (Trust Anchors).

What is the Gaia-X Compliance Service (i.e. Compliance Service)?

The Gaia-X Compliance Service belongs to the so-called Gaia-X Federation Services and its function is to verify compliance with the minimum interoperability rules defined by the Gaia-X Association. Gaia-X calls these minimum interoperability rules (Trust Framework). It should be noted that the establishment of the Trust Framework is one of the differentiating contributions of the Gaia-X technology framework compared to other solutions on the market. But the objective is not just to establish interoperability standards, but to create a service that is operable and, as far as possible, automated, that validates compliance with the Trust Framework. This service is the Gaia-X Compliance Service.

The key element of these rules are the so-called "Self-Descriptions" (SDs). SDs are verifiable credentials according to the standard defined by the W3C by which both the participants of a data space and the products made available by the providers describe themselves. The Gaia-X Compliance service validates compliance with the Trust Framework by checking the SDs from the following points of view:

• Format and syntax of the SDs
• Validation of the SDs schemas (vocabulary and ontology)
• Validation of the cryptography of the signatures of the issuers of the SDs
• Attribute consistency
• Attribute value veracity.

Once the Self-Descriptions have been validated, the compliance service operator issues a verifiable credential that attests to compliance with interoperability standards, providing confidence to ecosystem participants. Gaia-X AISBL provides the necessary code to implement the Compliance Service and authorises the provision of the service to trusted entities, but does not directly operate the service and therefore requires the existence of partners to carry out this task.

The Data Spaces Business Alliance (DSBA) was born in September 2021, a collaboration of four major organisations with much to contribute to the data economy: the Big Data Value Association (BDVA), FIWARE, Gaia-X and the International Data Spaces Association (IDSA). Its goal: to drive the adoption of data spaces across Europe by leveraging synergies.

How does the DSBA work?

The DSBA brings together diverse actors to realise a data-driven future, where public and private organisations can share data and thus unlock its full value, ensuring sovereignty, interoperability, security and reliability. To achieve this goal, DSBA offers support to organisations, as well as tools, resources and expertise. For example, it is working on the development of a common framework of technology agnostic blocks that are reusable across different domains to ensure the interoperability of different data spaces.

The four founding organisations, BDVA, FIWARE, Gaia-X and IDSA, have a number of international networks of national or regional hubs, with more than 90 initiatives in 34 countries. These initiatives, although very heterogeneous in focus, legal form, level of maturity, etc., have commonalities and great potential to collaborate, complement each other and create impact. Moreover, by operating at local, regional and/or national level, these initiatives provide regular feedback to European associations on the different regional policies, cultures and entrepreneurial ecosystems within the EU.

In addition, DSBA's application has been successful in the European Commission's call for the creation of a Support Centre, which will promote and coordinate actions related to sectoral data spaces. This centre will make available technologies, processes, standards and tools to support the deployment of common data spaces, thus enabling the re-use of data across sectors.

The DSBA hubs

The DSBA hubs refer to the global network combining the existing BDVA, FIWARE, Gaia-X and IDSA initiatives, as shown in the figure below.

BDVA i-Spaces

BDVA i-Spaces are cross-sector and cross-organisational data incubators and innovation hubs, aimed at accelerating data-driven innovation and artificial intelligence in the public and private sectors. They provide secure experimentation environments, bringing together all the technical and non-technical aspects necessary for organisations, especially SMEs, to rapidly test, pilot and exploit their services, products and applications.

i-Spaces offer access to data sources, data management tools and artificial intelligence technologies, among others. They host closed and open data from corporate and public sources, such as language resources, geospatial data, health data, economic statistics, transport data, weather data, etc. The i-spaces have their own Big Data infrastructure with ad hoc processing power, online storage and state-of-the-art accelerators, all within European borders.

To become an i-Space, organisations must go through an assessment process, using a system of 5 categories, which are ranked according to gold, silver and bronze levels.  These hubs must renew their labels every two years, and these certifications allow them to join a pan-European federation to foster cross-border data innovation, through the EUHubs4Data project.

FIWARE iHubs

FIWARE is an open software community promoted by the ICT industry, which - with the support of the European Commission - provides tools and an innovation ecosystem for entrepreneurs to create new Smart applications and services. FIWARE iHubs are innovation hubs focused on creating communities and collaborative environments that drive the advancement of digital businesses in this area. These centres provide private companies, public administrations, academic institutions and developers with access to knowledge and a worldwide network of suppliers and integrators of this technology, which has also been endorsed by international standardisation bodies.

There are 5 types of iHubs:

• iHub School: An environment focused on learning FIWARE, from a business and technical perspective, taking advantage of practical use cases.
• iHub Lab: Laboratory where you can run tests and pilots, as well as obtain FIWARE certifications.
• iHub Business Mentor: Space to learn how to build a viable business model.
• iHub Community Creator: Physical meeting point for the local community to bring together all stakeholders, acting as a gateway to the local and global FIWARE ecosystem.

Gaia-X Hubs

The Gaia-X Hubs are the national contact points for the Gaia-X initiative. It should be noted that they are not as such part of Gaia-X AISBL (the European non-profit association), but act as independent think tanks, which cooperate with the association in project deployment, communication tasks, and generation of business requirements for the definition of the architecture of the initiative (as the hubs are close to the industrial projects in each country).

Through them, specific data spaces are developed based on national needs, as well as the identification of funding opportunities to implement Gaia-X services and technology. They also seek to interact with other regions to build transnational data spaces, facilitating the exchange of information and the scaling up of national use cases internationally. To this end, the AISBL provides access to a collaborative platform, as well as support to the respective hubs in the distribution and communication of the use cases.

IDSA Hubs

The IDSA Hubs enable the exchange of knowledge around the reference architecture (known as the IDS-RAM) at country level. By bringing together research organisations, innovation promotion organisations, non-profit organisations, and companies that use IDS concepts and standards in the region, they seek to foster their adoption, and thus promote a sovereign data economy with greater capillarity.

These centres are driven in each country by a university, research organisation, or non-profit entity, working with IDSA to raise awareness of data sovereignty, transfer knowledge, recruit new members, and disseminate IDS-RAM-based use cases. To this end, they develop activities ranging from training sessions to meetings with decision-makers from different public administrations. They also promote and coordinate research and development projects with international organisations and companies, as well as with governments and other public entities.

Conclusion

As we said at the beginning, there is a great potential for synergies between these groups, which should be explored, discussed and articulated in concrete actions and projects. We are facing a promising opportunity to join forces and make further progress in the development and expansion of data spaces, in order to generate a significant impact on the Data Economy.

To stimulate the initial debate, the Data Spaces Business Alliance has prepared the document "Data Spaces Business Alliance Hubs: potential for synergies and impact", which explores the situation described above.

The Constituent Assembly of the Gaia-X Spain Association, whose headquarters are located in Talavera de la Reina, was held on 18 March. The event brought together more than 150 entities of all kinds, including companies, public bodies, universities and innovation institutions, with the aim of joining forces to create an open, federated and interoperable data infrastructure, following the values of digital sovereignty and data availability. The ultimate goal is to drive the transformation of strategic sectors within the framework of the Data Economy.

To advance in this area, a number of working groups have been set up. These groups seek to leverage the advantages of Gaia-X to develop sectoral data spaces where different actors share data in a voluntary and secure manner.

The Gaia-X national hub working groups

Among the various working groups that have been set up, we find both sectoral groups, as well as horizontal groups focused on enabling technologies, ethics and legislation. The aim is to develop the vision of the data space in each sector of activity, as well as to obtain common and guiding principles for all of them.

The working groups of the Gaia-X national hub facilitate the connection between companies, administrations and other entities that offer and demand data services and technologies, with the aim of obtaining an adequate development and interoperability of the sectorial data spaces. They also act as a meeting point to disseminate experiences, success stories and lessons learned.

These groups also participate in various events. One of them was Global Mobility Call, organised by IFEMA MADRID and Smobhub on 16 June to discuss sustainable mobility. It was attended by members of the mobility working group of the national Gaia-X Hub. During the session, several challenges related to the creation of data spaces came up, which, although focused on the field of mobility, can be applicable to other sectors.

4 challenges to consider

1. Moving from Theory to Practice

The creation of a data space must be done from a clear bottom-up approach, starting from concrete use cases, and making the most of the technological building blocks already available.

To this end, the first step is to identify the needs and opportunities that can be addressed by the exchange and exploitation of data within each sector. Use cases must address a specific business need. An economic model must be agreed and the responsibilities to be acquired by the actors involved, as well as an incentive scheme, must be established. Beyond the technical components, certainty is needed about the operational, legal and commercial considerations that will govern the data exchanges.

In developing the use cases, it is essential to establish the data catalogues to be exchanged and exploited, as well as the semantics of the data. It is also important that the solution created seeks interoperability with analogous solutions, as well as establishing mechanisms for continuous improvement of the quality of the data exchanged.

The use cases must demonstrate the value derived from data sharing. This can be done by taking advantage of the experimentation spaces available within the Data Spaces Business Alliance (DSBA) hubs, as well as by using agile methodologies that allow results to be visualised early on.

2. Standardisation

The recently proposed EU Data Act provides for the development of interoperability standards for the re-use of data across sectors, in an attempt to remove barriers to data exchange. In the absence of applicable standards, the Commission will adopt implementing orders in this respect.

In this regard, there is a need to change the way in which standards are generated in order to gain agility. Working group members can identify specific standardisation needs and even propose solutions that become de facto standards.

On the other hand, it is necessary to focus on the convergence of the different perspectives and approaches to the creation of data spaces that currently exist. Their development should not be conceived in isolation, or from the exclusive vision of a single association, but as holistically as possible.

3.Awareness raising and change management actions

In order to share data externally, there must be a mindset of sharing internally. This change of mindset involves complex change management where top management support is essential. A data culture needs to be embedded in organisations to maximise the value of data.

4.Communication and dynamisation actions to disseminate the model

It is also essential to develop workshops and congresses to address common problems, best practices and seek synergies of action. In order to raise awareness, it is necessary to evangelise about the profitability that data sharing generates for the sector's agents. This profitability is not only derived from its sale, but also from the generation of new products or the enrichment of existing ones, which adds value to the business.

These four general considerations must be nuanced by taking into account the specific needs of each sector to drive the development of effective sectoral data spaces. These spaces will facilitate the creation of innovative solutions based on data and disruptive technologies, such as artificial intelligence, helping to boost the competitiveness of companies and the advancement of society in general.

The Tourism Data Space event took place on 9 June, organised by Gaia-X, the European private sector initiative for the creation of an open, federated and interoperable data infrastructure to drive the Data Economy while respecting digital sovereignty. During the event, which was held online, international experts from the public and private sector discussed "How can data spaces contribute to the development of tourism in Europe through citizen-centric offerings?”. The event was a success with more than 250 attendees from 21 countries.

The tourism sector has a strong economic weight in Europe, although it has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and the drop in international tourist arrivals, which exceeded 70% worldwide. In this context, Gaia-X and data spaces are positioned as a great opportunity for companies in the sector. Gaia-X aims to make European data available to improve the ability to attract tourists by creating more personalised offers, products and services, resulting in an enhanced experience tailored to customers' needs. It was with this premise in mind that the event kicked off, focusing on the requirements and need for a secure, decentralised and citizen-oriented European tourism data space.

The opening speech of the event was given by Carme Artigas, Secretary of State for Digitalisation and Artificial Intelligence of the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Digital Transformation, who highlighted the importance of the tourism sector: "“Finally, we are giving the tourism the importance it deserves also in the data economy. At the EU level, the tourism sector directly contributes to almost 4% of GDP with 2.3 million businesses, majority of which are SMEs”. This sector also employs 22.4% of the service sector workforce, as Francesco Bonfiglio, Director General of Gaia-X AISBL, commented: "This market is worth billions of euros, and is one of the areas with the greatest impact if we decide to invest in a common European data space".

Artigas also stressed that "Before the end of the year we will have a new digital space for tourism at European level, and this is great news", always respecting the basic principles of data sovereignty, privacy, security and interoperability.

Yvo Volman, Chief Data Officer at DG-CNECT (European Commission), explained that in order to achieve the set objectives, empowerment and data sharing also across sectors is essential. This is the only way to establish better services and promote sustainability. The importance of education was also stressed by Natalia Bayona, Director of Innovation, Education and Investment at the World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO): "Tourism is the main employer of women and young people. However, 50% of people working in tourism have only secondary skills. If we want to develop a high-level economic sector, we have to develop education". In her speech, she also focused on the need for a public-private relationship, with projects such as Gaia-X as a spearhead to drive innovation.

This was followed by several presentations focused on providing an overview of the landscape of the Gaia-X Tourism data space in Europe, with experts from different countries. From Spain, Ana Moniche, Senior Analyst at Turismo Andaluz and NECSTourR, and Cristina Núñez, Director of Necstour, spoke about European regional practices for competitive and sustainable tourism, highlighting how European data sharing is fundamental to develop strategies based on quality information. Data sharing also offers companies with fewer resources the possibility of accessing large amounts of data, which they would not be able to access through their own mechanisms.

Dolores Ordóñez, Director of AnySolution and Vice President of the Spanish Gaia-X Hub, also spoke in this section. In her speech, she highlighted the need for collaboration between companies of different sizes and sectors, especially in four major areas: tourism, health, industry 4.0 and mobility. In the section dedicated to the pillars of tourism data spaces, among other speakers, Alberto Palomo, CDO of the Government of Spain, pointed out the importance of generating scalability in data sharing, as well as the creation of a common framework that shapes governance mechanisms that are useful and accepted by industry players. He also warned that the paradigm we are facing is that of an "innovative decentralised infrastructure", something that all participants must be clear about, because of the cultural change it implies.

To conclude, the event was divided into 3 thematic sessions, designed to create an atmosphere of cross-border collaboration and help create a sustainable data infrastructure for the tourism industry. These sessions focused on smart destinations, the tourism value chain and its technological enablers. More information about the event can be found in the video teaser. This event is part of a series of meetings organised by Gaia-X around data spaces. Two previous events have focused on mobility and health. Gaia-X will continue to hold such activities in the coming months, as can be seen in its calendar. In addition, it has launched a magazine and a podcast series to keep up to date with the latest trends related to the data space.

The following infographic shows the context driving the development of data spaces, focusing on some related European initiatives such as Gaia-X and ISDA. For more in-depth content you can read the following articles:

• The importance of deploying European Data Spaces
• Gaia-X and the drive for the data economy
• https://datos.gob.es/en/blog/ids-ram-reference-architecture-model-and-its-role-data-spaces
• The Data Office: the challenge of promoting the Data Economy

Click on the infographic to see it in full size and access the links:

The data economy represents a huge business opportunity for companies of all sizes and sectors. According to European Commission estimates, the Data Economy will be worth €829 billion in 2025 for the 27 member states. But for the data economy to develop properly, structures are needed to facilitate the exchange of data and, with it, the development of business models based on its exploration and exploitation.

Data spaces fulfil this function by facilitating the development of an ecosystem where different actors share data in a voluntary and secure manner. To do so, they must follow common governance, organisational, regulatory and technical mechanisms.

One way to ensure that this is done properly is through reference models, such as the IDS-RAM (International Data Spaces Reference Architect Model), an initiative developed by the International Data Space Association and endorsed by the European Union.

What is the International Data Space Association?

IDSA (International Data Spaces Association) is a coalition currently comprised of 133 international, not-for-profit companies, which emerged in 2016 to work on the concept of data spaces and the principles that their design should follow in order to obtain value from data through sharing, based on secure, transparent and fair mechanisms for participants, which guarantee sovereignty and trust. These companies represent dozens of industry sectors and are based in 22 countries around the world.

IDSA is connected to different European initiatives, including BDVA, FIWARE and Plattform Industrie 4.0, participating in more than twenty European research projects, mainly in the Horizon 2020 programme.

IDSA's mission is to drive the global digital economy. To this end, among other things, it promotes an architectural reference model called IDS (International Data Spaces), a secure and sovereign data exchange system. The aim of this model is to standardise data exchange in such a way that participants can obtain all possible value from their information without losing control over it, setting the conditions for the use of their own data.

IDS-RAM architecture

The IDS-RAM (Reference Architecture model) is characterised by an open architecture (they publish their code as open source software), reliable and federated for cross-sector data exchange, facilitating sovereignty and interoperability.

IDS-RAM establishes a series of standardised roles and interactions through a 5-layer structure (business, functional, process, information and system) that are addressed from the perspective of security, certification and governance, as shown in the following figure.

These layers are critical to ensure the success of a data sharing initiative. Let's look at each of them based on the IDSA's own "Reference architecture model" and Planetic's "Positioning on Data Spaces" report, where IDS-RAM is analysed as a success story.

The business layer defines the different existing roles and the interaction patterns between them, including contracts and data usage policies. Specifically, there are four roles:

• Essential participant: any organisation that owns, offers or consumes data.
• Intermediary: trusted entities and intermediaries, such as brokers, clearing houses, identity providers and others.
• Service/Software Provider: companies that provide services and/or software to participants.
• Governance body: such as certification bodies, which are essential to guarantee the capabilities of organisations and generate an environment of trust. The IDS Association itself would also be included in this section.

These roles are related in an ecosystem marked by six categories of requirements, defined in the functional layer:

• Trust, achieved through identity management and user certification.
• Security and data sovereignty, which includes authentication and authorisation, usage policies, trusted communication and technical certification.
• Data Ecosystem, which includes the description of data sources, data brokering and vocabularies used for metadata.
• Standardisation and interoperability, which ensures the operability necessary for successful data exchange.
• Value-added applications, which allow data to be transformed or processed.
• Data marketisation, which covers aspects such as billing, usage restrictions, governance, etc., necessary when data sharing is done under payment models.

The process layer captures the interactions that take place within the data space, including the on-boarding of users, for which they need to acquire an identity provided by a certification body and request a data connector (a technical component to be installed) from a software provider.

identity provided by a certification body and request a data connector (a technical component to be installed) from a software provider. This layer also defines the processes required for data exchange and the publication and use of data apps.

The information layer explains the information model and the common vocabulary to be used to facilitate compatibility and interoperability, so that data exchange can be automated. A proprietary ontology based on an RDF schema is used for its definition.

Finally, the system layer assigns a concrete architecture of data and services to each role in order to guarantee functional requirements.

All these abstractions of layers and perspectives enable the exchange of data between data providers and data consumers, using the appropriate software connectors, accessing the metadata broker where data catalogues and their conditions of use are specified, with the possibility of deploying applications for data processing and keeping track of the transactions carried out (clearing house), all of this guaranteeing the identity of the participants.

Ultimately, it is a functional framework that provides a governance framework for secure and reliable interoperability and an open software architecture to ensure maximum adoption. In this sense, the IDSA has set itself the following objectives:

• Establish the IDS model (RAM) as the international standard for data exchange in the economy of the future.
• Evolve this reference model according to use cases.
• Develop and evolve an adoption strategy for the model.
• Support its deployment based on certifiable software solutions and commercial models.

This standard is already being used by many companies as diverse as Deutsche Telekom, IBM or Volkswagen.

The role of IDS-RAM in Gaia-X and the European Data Strategy

The IDS reference architecture model is part of the initiatives deployed within the overall framework of the EU data strategy.

Through various initiatives, the European Commission seeks to promote and interconnect data spaces in order to foster the consultation, sharing and cross-exploitation of available data, while ensuring their privacy. It is in this framework that Gaia-X has been launched, an European private sector initiative for the creation of an open, federated and interoperable data infrastructure, built on the values of digital sovereignty and data availability, and the promotion of the data economy.

The IDSA association, promoter of the IDS reference architecture, is actively participating in Gaia-X, so that the initiatives currently underway to develop reference models and implementations for data sharing with sovereignty and trust can be brought together in a de facto open standard.

Content prepared by the datos.gob.es team.

There is no doubt that data is a fundamental asset for companies. Properly processed, they generate great competitive advantages, both in decision-making and in the generation of new products and services, enabling technologies such as Artificial Intelligence. This situation has made many organisations wary of sharing their data. However, the situation is changing and more and more companies and organisations are becoming aware of the advantages of this practice.

Data sharing drives efficiency in supply chains, enabling faster and more innovative product development. By sharing their data, organisations also benefit from access to third-party data, which can be of great use in a variety of fields: from training machine learning systems to enriching internal analytics. In addition, the fact that several companies are working in the same field, generating advances, means that the market matures earlier, opening up new business opportunities, as well as reducing the time and costs of marketing products. There are also benefits in terms of transparency and reputation.

Secure and controlled environments, such as data spaces, are necessary for this data exchange to take place in a safe and secure manner.

What are data spaces?

A data space is an ecosystem where diverse actors share data in a voluntary and secure manner, following common governance, organisational, regulatory and technical mechanisms. Some of the characteristics of advanced data spaces include:

• They ensure participants' trust and sovereignty over their data, creating an ecosystem of peer-to-peer data sharing. In a data space, each participant retains control over its own data, indicating the terms and conditions under which it can be used.
• They are independent of the underlying technological solution. This allows for portability and deployment in different physical infrastructures.
• Data is shared under FAIR principles, which facilitates the location, access and use of the data. To this end, datasets must be properly described, including the taxonomies used and their restrictions on use.
• They enable the deployment of different roles, such as data producers, consumers, data service providers, component developers or operators of essential services, facilitating the development of data intermediaries.
• They ensure the identity of the participants, as well as the suitability of the software components used, by means of appropriate approval or certification mechanisms.
• They enable different policies of access and use of information, so that data subjects can determine whether data is shared for free or not, under mechanisms that guarantee its proportionality.
• They ensure interoperability

European data spaces key to boosting the data economy

Data spaces are a key element of the European Data Strategy, which, among other issues, seeks to boost the region's economy through the creation of a single European data market, where data flows between Member States and between sectors of activity, in accordance with the European values of self-determination, privacy, transparency, security and fair competition.

In this strategy, the European Commission has already announced its interest in investing in and developing common data spaces in strategic economic sectors and sectors of public interest, notably those related to manufacturing, sustainable energy, mobility, health, finance, energy, agriculture, public administrations and skills. Once developed, these spaces are expected to be interconnected, so that the data available in them can be cross-exploited.

The creation of these data spaces seeks to overcome the legal and technical barriers linked to data sharing, through common standards, tools and infrastructures in a context of digital sovereignty. According to the European data strategy, the development of European data spaces should be carried out taking into account the following elements:

• The deployment of tools and services for data processing, exchange and sharing, as well as the federation of secure and energy-efficient cloud capabilities and related services. These tools should enable access to data in a fair, transparent, proportionate and non- discriminatory manner.
• The development of clear and reliable data governance structures, in compliance with EU law, with particular attention to the protection of personal data, consumer and competition law.
• Improving the availability, quality and interoperability of data, both within specific domains and across sectors.

In this regard, the European Commission endorses various measures and initiatives for the development of secure and sustainable digital infrastructures. These include Gaia-X, which seeks the development of an open, federated and interoperable data infrastructure in the cloud, and the International Data Spaces Association (IDSA), probably a substantial part of Gaia-X, which promotes an architectural reference model for the development of data spaces.

In the image below you can see these and other European initiatives at different levels related to data spaces. The left and central part shows some of the main European data initiatives, and how these are supported by hardware infrastructures. The right hand side shows the alignment with the most important EU initiatives within the European Data Strategy.

Spain is aligned with Europe in this area: the transition to a data economy is among the axes of the Digital Spain 2025 Plan. Work is currently underway to promote the enabling environment for the creation of sectoral data spaces, through the various data initiatives included in the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan. One example is the Spanish Gaia-X Hub, aimed at deploying a robust ecosystem in the field of industrial data sharing, comprising companies of all sizes. The aim of this type of action is to create a community around data that favours innovation and economic growth, with the consequent benefit for society.

Content written by the datos.gob.es team