European cloud providers have launched an initiative to build common infrastructure services that meet Gaia-X requirements. Around 20 companies, including TOP-IX, as interconnection services provider, have agreed to make their services Gaia-X compliant.
The Lighthouse Structura-X project complements existing industry-specific lighthouse initiatives for the automotive sector (Catena-X), agriculture (AgriGaia) and finance (EuroDat). Initial certified offerings are expected to be ready by the middle of next year.
The initiative emerged from the recent Gaia-X Summit in Milan in November. There, then German Economics Minister Peter Altmaier called for Gaia-X-compatible infrastructure to be built in Europe alongside industry services. In coordination with the Gaia-X foundation AISBL, seven European providers initially agreed on the common goal:
/ Atos
/ Aruba.it
/ DE-CIX
/ Deutsche Telekom
/ Engineering
/ Noovle
/ TOP-IX
In the meantime, other companies* from all over Europe have joined. Their common goal is to shape their existing infrastructure services into an eco-system for European data sovereignty. An overarching European cloud infrastructure is being created. Users will be able to test and deploy their services and data rooms in Gaia-X-approved infrastructure.
Structura-X will work closely with Gaia-X AISBL, which among other things defines the technical framework for data sovereignty. At the same time, Structura-X will enable the necessary scale for new cross-sector and cross-country collaboration in the cloud. This will address the fragmentation of the European cloud market.
*Other members of Lighthouse Structura-X are: AssoSoftware, Citynetwork, CS Group, CSI, EBRC, Fabasoft, KPN, Next Layer, Opennebula, OSISM, OVH, ThreeFold Tech, United Group.
