Cloud2Space4AI: A new interoperability initiative funded by EU

The Cloud2space4AI project, supported by the Digital Europe programme, was presented to the public last week at Vivatech France. The project aims to promote the emergence of a decentralised, secure and sovereign digital ecosystem. An additional EU-funded initiative following on from other cascading projects initiated by Visions.

This umpteenth EU-funded initiative for European interoperability and sovereignty is designed to connect existing marketplaces such as AWS Marketplace, Orange Cloud Avenue, Opendatasoft, CleverCloud, etc., to form a unified, interoperable and sovereign network.

In concrete terms, Cloud2Space4AI brings tangible benefits to all players in the European digital ecosystem:

• AI players benefit from easier access to structured, secure and contextualised data, which significantly improves the performance of their models while reducing technical and legal constraints. Thanks to verifiable, interoperable datasets – including personal data that can be used in a compliant framework – they can train, test and refine their systems with unprecedented quality. They also have the ability to activate end-to-end value chains by automatically orchestrating cloud, AI and data services within intelligent workflows. Finally, by connecting to a network of interconnected marketplaces across Europe, they extend the reach and value of their offerings while strengthening their competitiveness.

• For cloud providers, this is an opportunity to expand their market by integrating data spaces into their offering distribution strategy. This enables them to offer interoperable services that comply with European standards and attract new customers.

• Data marketplaces can enrich their catalogues by directly connecting their services and data to data spaces, while ensuring a secure and compliant framework for data circulation.

• Finally, European companies benefit from simplified access to a reliable and compliant data ecosystem that automates exchanges, accelerates innovation and strengthens competitiveness.

A new interoperability initiative funded by EU

The infrastructure provided means that services and data can be consumed without being imported into any of the marketplace (AWS or other), and that data held by a non-sovereign player can be circulated to a sovereign player.

By connecting the cloud, AI and data spaces within a single trusted framework, Cloud2Space4AI goes beyond the simple technological challenge. It initiates a real paradigm shift: that of a European digital sector capable of guaranteeing autonomy, traceability and sovereignty in the era of intelligent agents.

Time will tell us whether this initiative is a success, or whether, unlike Gaia-X, the objectives are too ambitious.

In fact, this project is the umpteenth of its kind, financed by EC and following on from other data-sharing markeplaces, such as VisionsTrust, from the company Visions, which is also behind anothers associatives projects, such as Prometheus-X and DS4Skills.

Project members include: Visions- Prometheus-x, Legal Data Space, Clever Cloud, Orange, Outscale, Pontus-X, Scaleway, AWS, Opendatasoft, Pleais, Linagora, Fiware.

There are also serious initiatives in progress, such as Eurostack, an industrial group's initiative to build a sovereign European technology stack, the virtua8ra sovereign cloud edge platform project, or even SECA (for Sovereign European Cloud API) which is the result of a business collaboration between Aruba and Ionos.