Brussels, September 16, 2020. Ursula Von Der Leyen highlighted in the State of the Union speech that “Industry Data is worth its weight in gold when it comes to developing new products and services. But the reality is that 80% of the sector’s data is collected but never used. This is pure waste. . A true data economy, on the other hand, would be a powerful driver for innovation and new jobs. […] For this, we need collaborative data spaces , for example in the energy or healthcare sectors.” [1] The value of the data economy in the EU-27 is expected to grow from 2.4% of EU GDP in 2018 to 5.8% in 2025, from €301 billion to €829 billion. And in this context, the European Commission is promoting a total investment of 4 to 6 billion euros that will be invested in total in common European data spaces and a European federation of cloud infrastructures and services [2].
The European Common Data Spaces are already a reality articulated through the Digital Europe R+D program, which has funded through different calls the creation of the Data Spaces Support Center and different Data Spaces such as Energy, Mobility or Manufacturing. The Data Spaces Support Center is a Coordination and Support Action that is supporting the creation of the different Sectoral Data Spaces. . This is a consortium of more than 10 partners formed around the Data Spaces Business Alliance which was formed by BDVA, FIWARE, Gaia-X and the International Data Spaces Association (IDSA) to drive the adoption of data spaces in Europe and beyond. [4]
What is a data space?
According to RISE, a data space is a ecosystem of organizations that they can share data among themselves more easily because of previously made agreements which refer to the aspects technical, legal and commercial of data exchange [ 5 ].
The data economy involves many actors, and as shown in Figure 1, data spaces must meet a need in which data is distributed among these many actors in a decentralized and dynamic data ecosystem.
Figure 1. From data exchange to data space. Source IDSA
The main components of a data space are [6]:
- Identity and trust
- Sovereign data exchange
- Federated catalog
- Compliance
Boot—X, a functional prototype of the data space. Advanced intelligent service for trust in automotive supply chains
In this context, at Huawei we decided make an implementation of a useful data space following the reference implementations of Gaia-X and IDSA, in collaboration with Fraunhoffer ISST and XLab .
Boot-X [7] was inspired by a series of use cases from the Catena-X project, as well as the new supply chain law. X-Category is an automotive sector data ecosystem involving the main players and projects in the area [8]. The supply chain law applies to companies with more than 3000 employees since January 2023 and, later, will apply to companies with more than 1000 employees. The aim of the Supply Chain Act is to ensure better protection of human rights throughout the supply chain. . It is a tough problem that leads to: a) a new risk management process that covers the entire supply chain, b) requires the exchange of documents, c) needs to comply with EU standards and address the challenges of Catena-X. Therefore, the Boot-X prototype aims to solve a real problem for companies that need to comply with the Supply Chain Act [9].
The diagram below depicts a simplified version of the entire automotive supply chain and the Boot-X data space.
Figure 2. Simplified automotive supply chain. Own elaboration
On the right you see a car shop and the customer who wants to see that the car complies with supply chain law. The auto shop gets the car from an auto factory that assembled the parts for the car, which got the parts from different companies like the one that provided the seat Factory that in turn received the parts from different factories. To meet Supply Chain requirements they have to exchange documents and so on, it is complex and doing it with the legacy method is complicated. So we decided to implement it with a Data Space. At each step, the Declaration of Principles must be shared. It is the first and most necessary document in the entire process.
Catena-X companies highlighted an important element of the supply chain, related to protection of the commercial relationships of companies in the supply chain. And each company only reaches information from companies one step up and one step down, it is called the one-up-one-down principle. This means that you will only see the documents of the previous supplier and the Factory you are serving but not beyond. For example, the car factory could see the documents of the seat factory but not those of the seat components.
We see three levels in the diagram in Figure 2:
At the top level, we see that the papers with the declarations of principles (signed by the CEO more or less) are scanned and entered into the system as PDF files. In this step, the scanned file is supplemented with the data necessary for a automatic document check which is done later. These are a few data fields that are physically present and that must be entered by the person uploading the document into the system.
At the mid-level, we see a section of an automotive supplier’s supply chain. The arrows between the individual boxes symbolize the relationship between these companies as suppliers and customers .
At the end of the entire chain is the customer who, for example through a QR code, could validate the validity of the document chain live in the showroom , to ensure that the selected product has been manufactured in accordance with the standard. At the lowest level, we then see a symbolic representation of the data space. The data space allows you to pull digitized documents into a chain that resembles the structure of the supply chain. Through the Advanced Smart Service it is possible to validate the chain as a whole in a rollback process, thus demonstrating to the customer that all (social) standards have been met during the production of the product.
Main components of the software
Figure 3. Boot-X software components
The main software components selected for implementation were the following:
- Identity and trust: Web DID extension to Eclipse Dataspace Connector (EDC) and Keycloak. User management
- Sovereign data exchange: Eclipse Data Space Connector (EDC). Compliance with EU legislation. Where Fraunhoffer ISST is one of the main partners contributing to the code.
- Federated catalog: Expansion of the federated catalog at the EDC
- Conformity: ELK Stack. Login, generation of metrics for compliance services, business processes and procedures, and how to comply with the Gaia-X framework.
A web interface is included in the actual implementation, although it is also possible to connect it to the customer’s existing web or mobile interfaces.
Next steps In fact, we are in the process of selecting and implementing the first real small pilots, with the participation of 3-4 actors with the aim of having them up and running in the first half of 2024. The next steps include the definition of large-scale pilots that include dozens or hundreds of users to implement them within the framework of national or community projects. If you are interested in collaborating with us in any of these ways, you can just reach out to us.
References
[1] https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/SPEECH_20_1655 [2] https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/fs_20_283 [3] Digital Europe R+D Program 2021-2027, Data Spaces Calls published so far: https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/portal/screen/opportunities/topic-search?keywords=Data% 20Spaces&closed=true&programmePeriod=2021%20-%202027&frameworkProgramme=43152860&programmePart = [4] https://dssc.eu/page/Endorsements [5] https://rise.articulate.com/share/gpChBULr0HCHBSJCKcXELOQax7tn9KHs#/lessons/f77WCXxwgzkIu47AvH9OPuL9xZS5axj6 [6] Gaia-X and IDSA position paper: chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://internationaldataspaces.org/wp-content/uploads/dlm_uploads/IDSA-Position-Paper-GAIA-X-and-IDS.pdf [7] https://boot-x.eu/ [8] https://catena-x.net/en/about-us [9] https://www.bmas.de/EN/Europe-and-the-World/International/Supply-Chain-Act/supply-chain-act.html