What is Gaia-X?
Gaia-X strives for innovation through digital sovereignty. The goal is to create an ecosystem where data is shared and made available in a trusted environment. The intention is to give control back to users by letting them retain sovereignty over their data. The result will not be a cloud. It will be a federated system that connects many cloud service providers and users in a transparent environment and will drive the European data economy of tomorrow.
Gaia-X is aimed at companies, especially SMEs and organisations, that want to exchange their diverse data or create added value through it and develop new data-driven business models. For the associated data transfers, Gaia-X provides a common set of rules for access and transport protocols, services and policies. These all follow the Gaia-X principles of transparency, data security, data protection, interoperability and scalability.
How are Gaia-X and GXFS connected?
The architectural structure of Gaia-X is based on the principle of decentralisation. Gaia-X is the result of many individual data owners (users) and technology players (providers) – all adopting a common standard of rules and control mechanisms – the Gaia-X standard.
To ensure interoperability between this variety of actors, the Gaia-X Federation Services (GXFS) represent the minimum technical requirements and services needed to operate federated Gaia-X ecosystems of infrastructure and data. These services leverage existing standards and open technologies, such as open source software.
Overview of the main Gaia-X stakeholders
The organisational structure is built on three pillars: the Gaia-X AISBL, the national Gaia-X Hubs and the Gaia-X Community. Within these, there are various working groups and committees. The exchange within the pillars, between the pillars and beyond towards other stakeholders (e.g. EU Commission, international initiatives) is ensured.
- Gaia-X European Association for Data and Cloud AISBL represents the core of the organisational structure of the Gaia-X vision. It is an international non-profit association under Belgian law. Its purpose and objective are to develop regulatory frameworks, ensure that necessary services are made available, consolidate and facilitate work and collaboration within the Gaia-X community, to represent the members of Gaia-X and promote international cooperation.
- The Gaia-X Hubs act as the voice of user ecosystems on a national level. They are the central contact points for companies, stakeholders, initiatives, associations and public sector bodies Their main objectives are to bundle national initiatives, develop ecosystems, and provide a central point of contact to interested parties in their respective countries.
- The open-source Gaia-X Community comprises the entire, global Gaia-X network. Users and providers collaborate on work packages. Everyone is welcome to join the Community and contribute to the establishment of a federated data infrastructure.