Documentation

European Cloud Accelerator

Introduction

The European Cloud Accelerator (ECA) is a collaborative initiative to enable a new era of trusted, sovereign, and interoperable data sharing across Europe’s digital landscape.

At its core, the ECA is about helping organizations across sectors—public, private, and academic—build and adopt dataspaces: decentralized, policy-driven ecosystems where data can be shared under clear terms, across company and cloud boundaries, without losing control or sovereignty.

Why It Matters

Data is the raw material of the digital economy—but it only becomes valuable when it is shared and reused. Traditional models of isolated data silos and central platforms no longer serve the needs of interconnected supply chains, cross-border regulation, or AI development.

The European Cloud Accelerator aims to:

• Scale dataspaces as-a-service across Europe’s cloud and edge infrastructure
• Create economic opportunities for European cloud and technology providers
• Support compliance with key European legislation (e.g. the Data Act, Digital Product Passport, Carbon Accounting)
• Foster innovation in AI, sustainability, manufacturing, logistics, and beyond

Guiding Principles

We follow several core principles inspired by shared values across the European data and cloud communities:

1. Trust-by-design
   dataspaces establish trust between participants using verifiable credentials, usage policies, and decentralized identity mechanisms.

2. Your data, your rules
   Data sovereignty means participants stay in control of who uses their data, how, for how long, and where. Data doesn’t flow through intermediaries—it flows peer-to-peer.

3. Interoperability at every level
   We support open standards (e.g. ISO 20151, DSP, DCP, OPC UA) and open protocols to ensure data and services can connect across domains, providers, and national borders.

4. Open source as foundation
   Core building blocks—like the Eclipse Dataspace Components—are open, modular, and extensible. This fosters shared innovation and avoids lock-in.

5. Decentralization and neutrality
   There is no central authority. Governance is defined by the community, and services are federated across cloud providers, industries, and countries.

The Work Ahead

The ECA is not a top-down project—it’s a community of contributors working across multiple layers:

• Cloud and Edge providers: Offering scalable, sovereign infrastructure for hosting dataspaces
• Software developers and open-source communities: Building and extending reusable components
• Standards bodies and policymakers: Shaping regulation and interoperability frameworks
• Industry consortia and domain experts: Defining real-world use cases and requirements
• End users: Bringing adoption, feedback, and demand

Join the Movement

Everyone has a role to play—whether you’re a cloud provider, startup, regulator, researcher, or industrial partner. The European Cloud Accelerator is a shared, long-term journey to transform how data is shared, trusted, and monetized in Europe.

Let’s build it—together.

🌐 Learn more: https://github.com/eclipse-edc
📄 Key reference: ISO/IEC 20151 – Definition of dataspaces
🤝 Join a working group: IDSA, Gaia-X, DSSC, OPC Foundation, iSHARE, Catena-X