Page 16 - U4SSC Data and API requirements for centralized smart city platforms

International data space focus on the process, governance and data exchange among the various
participants and are agnostic on the underlying infrastructure. However, as this is equally important
for the overall data management strategy, a separate initiative has been looking into this, namely
Gaia-X.

3.2 Gaia-X

Gaia-X is an initiative to develop a federated secure data infrastructure based on the values of
transparency, openness, data protection, and security, which can be applied to cloud technologies
to obtain transparency and controllability across data and services. As described in the Vision &
Strategy document (Gaia-X, 2023):

“Gaia-X represents the next generation of data infrastructure: an open, transparent, and secure digital
ecosystem, where data and services are available, collated, and shared in an environment of trust.

The architecture of Gaia-X is based on the principles of decentralisation and federation. Gaia-X allows
many individual platforms to follow a common standard – the Gaia-X standard to work together.”

• The goals of Gaia-X are to:

– Define Gaia-X architecture & rules

– Provide open implementation

– Act as a qualification authority for Gaia-X compliance

Although not specific to Smart Cities, or Smart City Platforms (SCPs), Gaia-X can provide guidelines
for allowing the interoperability between SCPs of SCPs and other platforms, as long as all involved
parties are Gaia-X compliant.

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