Milan Workshop Summary – June 2025

The European Cloud Accelerator community gathered in Milan in June 2025 for a multi-day workshop focused on advancing the vision of open, sovereign, and interoperable data spaces. The event brought together cloud providers, industrial data experts, open-source contributors, and policymakers to align efforts and accelerate progress across the ecosystem.

Key Themes

🌍 Trusted Data Sharing at Scale

Trust emerged as the foundation for everything discussed. Participants emphasized that scalable data sharing across industries and borders requires verifiable identities, enforceable policies, and peer-to-peer exchange models that respect sovereignty.

“Your data, your choice — with great responsibility comes great power.”
— echoed across sessions as a guiding principle

🏗️ Technical Foundation: Eclipse Dataspace Components (EDC)

Demos and deep dives showcased how EDC can enable data spaces to operate across cloud, on-premises, and edge environments. Attendees explored how to deploy, extend, and contribute to EDC as a modular open-source stack.

Focus areas included:

  • Multi-tenant EDC architectures
  • Federated catalog and control plane evolution
  • Deployment patterns across Azure, Fulcrum, and Opiquad-hosted clouds

🤝 Industry and Ecosystem Alignment

Leaders from Catena-X, Manufacturing-X, IDSA, iSHARE, OPCF, and the OPC Foundation shared how they are building production-grade data spaces with real-world constraints:

  • Automotive, supply chain, and energy sectors are prioritizing interoperability and self-sovereign identity
  • Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) must be first-class citizens, with minimal onboarding friction
  • Cross-domain and international cooperation is essential — “no one wants to onboard to five data spaces five different ways”
  • OPCF highlighted its role in bridging industrial automation and data spaces, including initiatives such as “OPC UA for Battery Solutions” where European Cloud partners, Fraunhofer, Catena-X, Microsoft, Huawei, and others are prototyping a digital battery passport

🧱 Standards and Regulation

With the EU Data Act taking effect, aligning with emerging standards became a top priority. Topics included:

  • The upcoming harmonized European standards for data spaces (per Article 33)
  • Profiles and protocols from the Eclipse DSSC working group
  • Integration of OPC UA, AAS, and policy enforcement models across layers

Takeaways & Next Steps

Babak Jahromi summarized the spirit of the workshop:

“We’ve come far — now everyone must ask: how do I plug in, and how do I contribute? Some of us will work on multi-tenancy. Others can test binaries in their native environment. The path is emerging.”

Immediate Actions

  • ✅ Test and deploy EDC in your own environment (Docker, Azure, Opiquad, etc.)
  • ✅ Join a working group (EDC, DSSC, Gaia-X, IDSA, OPCF)
  • ✅ Contribute use cases, feedback, and reference integrations
  • ✅ Plan for migration paths — data spaces are now running in production

📚 View the full introduction to the European Cloud Accelerator →
🔗 Get started with Eclipse Dataspace Components
🔗 Learn more about OPCF and OPC UA
📄 Download the June 2025 Workshop PDF


Agenda

Milan June 2025 Event Agenda

Introduction & Attendees

This page highlights selected participants of the European Cloud Accelerator community and their roles in advancing trusted, interoperable data sharing across Europe.

Keynote – Prof. Boris Otto (Fraunhofer ISST)

Intro to Dataspaces

Intro to Dataspaces, General Data Sharing Scenarios, and Feedback Solicitation – Eric Samson

Industrial Data Sharing – Erich Barnstedt

Erich Barnstedt’s session focused on the urgent need for interoperable, standardized digital infrastructures in manufacturing, driven by the upcoming 2027 Digital Product Passport (DPP) regulation. He emphasized the critical role of open source, semantic standards, and industry collaboration to enable compliance, resilience, and new business opportunities—especially for small and medium-sized manufacturers.

Industry Partners

Industry Partners

Aruba and Opiquad

Aruba and Opiquad at June Milan 2025 event

Opiquad and Fulcrum

Fulcrum at June Milan 2025 event

Technical Deep Dive EDC

Technical Deep Dive EDC - June Milan 2025 event

Wrap up and Next Steps

Wrap up and Next Steps - June Milan 2025 event