GAIA-X
GAIA-X is an industry-driven initiative which aims to support the development of a sustainable and innovative data economy in Europe. Its main goal is to create a trustworthy and sovereign digital ecosystem which will foster innovation and new data driven services and applications in Europe.
Gaia-X is a federated system that links many cloud services providers and users together and supports the development of sectorial “data spaces”. The project is closely aligned with the European Data Strategy, which strives towards a genuine single market for data, and is also a step towards increasing Europe’s technological capacity and values.
Gaia-X produces three main types of output: Specifications, Open-Source Software Code, and Labels. The Specifications describe how Gaia-X works in terms of compliance rules and technical requirements. The Code as a reference implementation automates the core elements of the control and governance framework. The Labels are automatically applied to Gaia-X services to provide evidence of its level of trust and ease the adoption by users.
The architecture of Gaia-X is based on the key principles of federation, distributed consensus, decentralisation, and regulation by automation. The latter is meant to reduce the complexity and costs associated with the verification of the credentials of a service, by automating them as much as possible in technology.
GAIA-X is a cross-sectoral solution that will have an impact on most business sectors, including sectors where CSC is involved such as health, environment, or social sciences & humanities. Cloud and High- Performance Computing, machine learning and artificial intelligence are also part of the Gaia-X infrastructure ecosystem and will be equally impacted by the development of the initiative.
CSC joined GAIA-X AISBL in 2021 and has been involved in several activities, such as the Identity & Trust working group which it co-led from September 2020 to February 2022 to deliver the first Gaia-X Identity & Access Management (IAM) framework. CSC is particularly involved in the health sector through the TEHDAS initiative which aims to improve cross-border use of health data for the benefit of citizens’ health, for public health, research and innovation. CSC is also involved nationally in the Gaia-X Finnish hub, led by SITRA, to facilitate & support the participation of Finnish stakeholders in the Gaia-X initiative.
