Data, data economy and sharing data have been recognised as a key topic in the digitalization of the society. Capability to create, process, and use data across organisational boundaries with losing the data sovereignty, i.e. the rights of the data owner to control the use of its data, is the key enabler of data-driven systems. Data spaces have been proposed as a technology to share valuable and confidential data between companies. Data spaces combine the secure transfer of data with legally binding contracts that define how data can be used and what data rights are transferred as a part of the data transaction. The idea of the data space is to break data silos between the companies that are committed members of the data space, but because of the needed trust mechanisms, the data space creates a silo itself.
The overall objective of DS2 is to develop a data space interoperability solution that enables data space members to share data using data space technology with members of another data space, when these two data spaces have agreed to do so. The interoperability solution needs to support the data sovereignty and governance through the complex life cycle of data. Because data spaces and DS2 are novel ways for a company/organisation to get and share data with third parties, it needs to be integrated with their data management systems. The DS2 will also tackle the problems with managing and governing these aspects, and with supporting process where human involvement is needed with advanced AI/LLM technologies.
Data space interoperability is needed in common European data spaces that are essentially sectoral interoperability solutions with data spaces as their members. Data sharing enabled by them and DS2 solution can have significant impacts in enabling the AI/LLM revolution in industrial and commercial settings, where data is not openly available. Development, maintenance and use of AI is fully dependent on the data, and DS2 provides means to add confidential data as an element in these processes. More traditional use cases such as supply network optimisation, asset management, various cyber-physical system, and smart services will benefit from data that is not otherwise accessible. The expected economic impact of data economy is hundreds of billions of Euros.
