On September 25th 2024 CoE-DSC organized a Community Meeting on Gaia-X and Gaia-X Digital Clearing House (GXDCH). This meeting was powered by Topsector ICT. We did an update on data sharing and cloud developments both in the EU and the Netherlands. Furthermore we discussed international developments of Gaia-X and the GXDCH. In addition, a Digital Clearing House provider (T-Systems) showed what they have encountered in practice and what solutions they came up with.
Developments in Europe
Bjorn Hakansson (CoE-DSC/TNO) gave us insights in the transformation of the cloud market in the EU. He also zoomed in on developments in the Dutch cloud ecosystem and the activities of TNO. And how TNO and CoE-DSC work on translating EU initiatives and developments into Dutch activities. CoE-DSC and TNO are active in the European Alliance for Industrial Data, Edge & Cloud (IPCEI). This is an alliance develops roadmaps for the European Commission.
Gaia-X and Digital Clearing House
In his presentation ‘Paving the Way for Secure and Federated Data Usage’, Frederik Tengg (Release Manager Gaia-X European Association for Data and Cloud AISBL) explained what a DCH is and how it works. He also clarified why Gaia-X is launching a Digital Clearing House (GXDCH).
GXDCH in practice
Aleksandar Kelecevic (Product and Technology Lead T-Systems) delved into Digital.ID, one of the first Gaia-X Digital Clearing House nodes, and your gateway to obtaining Verifiable Credentials from Trust Anchors recognized by national and European governments. He showed what T-Systems has run into and how they found solutions.
His main take-away was: Learn how Digital.ID simplifies trust-building in dataspaces by providing verifiable credentials, ensuring secure data sharing and compliance with European regulations.
Gaia-X AISBL & Gaia-X Digital Clearing Houses
Klaus Ottradovetz explained what the Gaia-X Policy Rules Committee and the Gaia-X Technical Committee do. Furthermore he showed what SMEs can gain from using a digital Clearing House:
- As a user of Cloud Infrastructure
- As a participant in a Dataspace
- As a provider of services
GXDCH & shaping tomorrow’s cloud infrastructure
Edwin Harmsma (Research Consultant CoE-DSC/TNO) emphasized that getting from platform silos into federated ecosystems is the key priority for the future of digital Europe. Federated and decentral ecosystems – independently of being data or cloud-service oriented – can only go live if the operations within the ecosystem can work at European scale. Digital Clearing Houses and marketplace operators are the necessary roles to bring trust and discoverability into the ecosystems. He concluded with: ‘Let’s see if we can expand our ongoing national journey with these roles being fulfilled by market players!’
His take-aways were:
- Digital ecosystems cannot go live if the intermediate roles are not up and running! Let’s get several Digital Clearing houses and marketplaces operational in the Netherlands.
- We’re shaping tomorrow’s cloud infrastructure now: Gaia-X and IPCEI-CIS/8ra.com. So please join the CoE-DSC running activities on federated cloud if you want to participate in early trials and validations!
