These are the first EU-wide tenders for the release candidate of the Gaia-X Federation Services
Through this technical work, BigchainDB will significantly contribute to the development of a decentralised European data infrastructure
January 31st 2022, Berlin - eco, the German Association of the Internet Industry, announced that BigchainDB, founding member of Ocean Protocol, with extensive expertise in data services for private enterprises and public organisations, was awarded 3 tenders organised for the operational implementation of Gaia-X. The German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK) is funding the overall project with approximately 13.5 million EUR until autumn 2022.
The approach proposed by BigchainDB for the GXFS tenders is based on the requirements set by the Gaia-X community and published in the technical specifications. Core functionalities are already featured in the Minimal-Viable Gaia-X Demonstrator. The Ocean Protocol tech stack provides Gaia-X with the tools to build a decentralized network, completely open, transparent, interoperable, with no lock-in, and conformity and trust checked automatically.
Trent McConaghy, BigchainDB founder, commented:
“Our values converge with the European values of building towards a decentralized, secure and transparent digital ecosystem for a European data economy that can be more competitive at the global level. We are pleased to have been chosen to shoulder the technical requirements that will enable the GXFS to become operational and to help deliver an efficient, competitive, secure and trustworthy federation of data infrastructure and service providers for Europe.
Andreas Weiss, Head of Digital Business Models at eco – Association of the Internet Industry, added that:
“The Gaia-X`s open source software modules, available mid-year, will enable innovation based on shared data spaces. This will benefit artificial intelligence applications, for example, AI-based Industrie 4.0 service ecosystems such as Service-Meister.
Francesco Bonfiglio, CEO of Gaia-X AISBL, remarked that:
“I’m very happy to see the GXFS project moving into the development phase. The partners awarded will support realising Gaia-X, developing its SW foundation. As Ocean Protocol has brought in the principles of decentralised, secure, trusted data exchange at the core of their mission, the alignment with the Gaia-X principles comes at no surprise, truly showcasing the importance of moving things forward on the basis of the necessary European synergies in place.
GXFS tenders attributed to BigchainDB:
Lot 5 - Federated Catalogue - Core Catalogue Features (FC.CCF): The goal of the Catalogue is to enable consumers and end users to find best-matching offerings and to monitor for relevant changes of the offerings.
Lot 8 - Sovereign Data Exchange - Data Contract Service (SDE.DCS): The Data Contract Service enables data transactions in a secure, trusted, and auditable way. It offers interfaces for the negotiation of data contracts detailing the agreed terms (Data Asset Usage Policy) for planned data exchange. The service is not meant to handle the transaction of data (that is described in the negotiated data contracts).
Lot 9 - Sovereign Data Exchange - Data Exchange Logging Service (SDE.DELS): The purpose of the service functions to be implemented is to provide evidence that data has been (a)submitted, (b)received and (c)rules and obligations (Data Usage Policies) were enforced or violated within the Gaia-X ecosystem. This supports the clearing of operational issues, but also eventually the clearing of fraudulent transactions. Additionally, the data consumer can track and provide evidence on the enforcement or violation of data usage policies. From a functional perspective, the DELS provides an interface to track logging notifications and to read the logging messages afterward.
BigchainDB is a company that allows developers and enterprises to deploy blockchain proof-of-concepts, platforms and applications. It also supports a wide range of industries and use cases from identity and intellectual property to supply chains, energy, IoT and financial ecosystems. BigchainDB is the founding member of Ocean Protocol, a decentralized data exchange platform guided by a vision to promote data sovereignty and transparency. Ocean Protocol technology allows private data to be shared, without compromising control or security for the data owner, while ensuring traceability, transparency and trust for all stakeholders involved.
To build the components that meet the deliverables of eco’s GXFS tenders 5, 8 and 9, BigchainDB will also employ the assistance and expertise of two subcontractors, namely Smart Control and deltaDAO.
For a complete overview of the specifications of the Gaia-X Federated Services, please see https://www.gxfs.de/federation-services/overview-specification-documents/. Gaia-X, the final beneficiary of these tenders, aims to be a decentralized, secure, transparent digital ecosystem for the European data economy. Digital services and data can be shared easily and securely by any public or private institution without sacrificing data protection, privacy, and European values. As data has the potential to become the single most valuable good of our time, Gaia-X will significantly contribute to the economic welfare of all Europeans in the coming decades. This is achieved through a multitude of interoperable platforms that all follow minimum technical requirements and services known as the Gaia-X federated services. (Sources: https://www.gaia-x.eu/).