A number of European cloud providers have launched an initiative to build shared infrastructure services that meet the requirements of the continent’s cloud project Gaia-X. Around 20 companies, including Italy’s Top-IX as interconnection services provider, have agreed to make their services Gaia-X compliant under a project called Lighthouse Structura-X.
The initiative emerged from last month’s Gaia-X Summit in Milan, where 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, a total of seven European providers – Atos, Aruba.it, DE-CIX, Deutsche Telekom, Engineering, Noovle and Top-IX – initially agreed on the common goal, with AssoSoftware, Citynetwork, CS Group, CSI, EBRC, Fabasoft, KPN, Next Layer, Opennebula, OSISM, OVH, ThreeFold Tech United Group also joining.
The Lighthouse Structura-X project is designed to complement 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, said the partners, adding that their common goal is to shape their existing infrastructure services into an ecosystem for European data sovereignty.
