In 2019, ministers from France and Germany formally launched Gaia-X, an EU cloud initiative that aims to establish an interoperable data exchange through which businesses can share data under the protection of European laws.
Name in original language
GAIA-X
Initiative overview
With GAIA-X, representatives from politics, business and science from France and Germany, together with other European partners, create a proposal for the next generation of a data infrastructure for Europe: a secure, federated system that meets the highest standards of digital sovereignty while promoting innovation. This project is the cradle of an open, transparent digital ecosystem, where data and services can be made available, collated and shared in an environment of trust. On 15 September, the founding members signed the founding documents of the AISBL company. The company is now in the process of being set up. GAIA-X is expected to launch in 2021, with France and Germany hoping to have a prototype platform up and running by the end of 2020.The initiative has the following objectives:To create a unified ecosystem of cloud and data services protected by European data laws.To develop common requirements for a European data infrastructure. Therefore openness, transparency and the ability to connect to other European countries are central to GAIA-X.
Name of responsible organisation (in English)
Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF; Ministère de l'Économie et des Finances); Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (Germany) (BMWi; Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Energie)
