Gaia-X is a European initiative launched by the governments of Germany and France in 2019 to develop a federated framework for cloud services and data infrastructures based on common requirements for interoperability, transparency, data control and compliance. The initiative subsequently developed into Gaia-X AISBL, a Belgian international non-profit association bringing together cloud providers, technology companies, users and research organisations.
It was developed to help ensure European digital sovereignty. It has moved past the development stage and is now being implemented. It promotes interoperability and data sovereignty across Europe and elsewhere.New Gaia-X Hub Launched in Brazil, 28 October 2025. It provides a framework and tools digital governance to ensure data can be shared securely while complying with European values of transparency, openness, data protection, and security, which can be applied to cloud technologies to obtain transparency and controllability across data and services. The project name is a reference to the Greek goddess Gaia.
Gaia-X started as an initiative by the former German Minister of Economic Affairs, Peter Altmaier, and his French counterpart, Bruno Le Maire, in 2019. Originally presented at the 2019 Digital Summit in Dortmund, Germany, the initiative is under the von der Leyen Commission of European strategic autonomy and is under continuous development. The initiative is based in Belgium and has the legal form of an international non-profit organization (AISBL). It aims to develop a proposal for the next generation of data infrastructure for Europe, and promote the digital sovereignty of European users of cloud services.
Goals
The aim of Gaia-X is to foster digital sovereignty aligned with European values.
To do so, Gaia-X is supporting ecosystems where data can be exchanged in a trustworthy way and owners keep sovereignty over their data, thus easing the growth of data economy.
To do so, Gaia-X has released standards, rules and a verification framework to enable transparent environments to spread for data exchanges.
According to the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Energy (BMWi), openness, transparency and European connectivity are central to Gaia-X. The stated goal of this digital ecosystem is to ensure that companies and business models from Europe can be competitive, and share data within a trustworthy environment.
Gaia-X's objective is not to become a Cloud service provider or a Cloud management platform or to compete with hyperscalers.
Solutions
The project combines existing central and decentralized infrastructures to form a "digital ecosystem" using secure, open technologies with clearly identifiable Gaia-X nodes. The ecosystem includes software components from a common repository,Gaia-x for developers, 18 November 2025. and standards based on relevant EU regulations. Gaia-X intends to offer significant benefits from a data and infrastructure perspective, including innovative cross-sector data cooperation and more transparent business models.
Deliverables Gaia-X AISBL is responsible for the following deliverables:
Specifications describing Gaia-X functional and technical requirements Code, provided by the Gaia-X Open Source Software Community, translating the forementioned specifications Labels certifying compliance to the governance rules written in the specifications
Specifications Gaia-X provides the following specifications to describe Gaia-X concepts:
The Gaia-X Architecture Document explains concepts and requirements for technical and syntaxical interoperability - no link with governance rules The Gaia-X Compliance Document expresses all the rules to follow to enable organisational and semantical interoperability - no link with technical requirements The Gaia-X Identity, Credentials and Access Management Document specifies how to deal with rights, authentication and access when interacting with a Gaia-X Ecosystem The Gaia-X Data Exchange Document explains process and rules for data exchanges in the Gaia-X world.
The Architecture Document outlines what needs to be built and how the pieces conceptually fit together. The Compliance Document defines the rules and criteria that govern the behaviour of those pieces and their participants.
Code Gaia-X specifications are turned into code by the Gaia-X Open Source Software community.
This code is an example of implementation of Gaia-X concepts and rules, creating software modules.
Two versions of these components are available so far:
Version 1 named TAGUS Version 2 named LOIRE - current version of Loire 25.03
Policy rules, compliance framework and Labels
Policy Rules
The Gaia-X Policy Rules turn the initiative's principles into requirements that participants and service offerings must meet. They cover contractual transparency, data protection, cybersecurity, portability, sustainibility and, at the higher levels of assurance, European control over data processing and access. Gaia-X did not set out to build a separate regulatory system: wherever existing legislation, standards, certifications or industry codes of conduct could already show that a requirement had been met, the rules point to them (named Permissible Standards).. The first version of were published in June 2020, and did not yet include sustainability nor a separate section for European Sovereignty provisions.
The Policy Rules Committee oversee the drafting, and several versions went out to public consultation. At the consultation on version 21.04 in May 2021, the committee was represented by its chair, Ulrich Eichhorn, and its co-chair, Alban Schmutz. Schmutz, who sat for the cloud providers' association CISPE, later chaired the committee.
The rules were gradually turned into criteria that could be verified in practice. The 2022 Policy Rules and Labelling Document grouped them under a contractual framework, data protection, cybersecurity, portability and European control, and mapped each requirement to existing schemes — depending on the criterion, ISO27001, France's SecNumCloud, German's C5, the CISPE Data Protection Code of Conduct, the EU Cloud Code of Conduct or the SWIPO codes on cloud portability or the Climate Neutral Data Centre Pact. The EUCS (cloud computing) certification scheme in development under the Cybersecurity Act is also referenced since 2020 for cybersecurity provisions. Compliance is compositional: a certification or code of conduct a provider already held could serve as evidence for a given Gaia-X criterion, rather than each requirement being assessed again through a separate Gaia-X mechanism.
Labelling framework
Gaia-X then added a labelling framework to distinguish service offerings by level of assurance. Three levels were defined at the outset, each demanding more than the last on transparency, autonomy, data protection, security, interoperability, portability and European control. Part of the criteria rested on self-assessment and part on evidence drawn from recognised standards; the more demanding requirements, and the higher levels, called for assessment by a conformity assessment body. Here too, existing certifications and codes of conduct could be reused rather than duplicated.
The labels were tied to the Gaia-X Trust Framework, which described participants and service offerings through machine-readable self-descriptions, signed cryptographically and expressed as W3C Verifiable Credentials, so that compliance claims could be checked automatically.
Evolution into the Compliance Document
The documentation went through several rounds. The original Policy Rules Document gave way to the Policy Rules and Labelling Document, which sat alongside a separate Trust Framework. In 2024 the two were merged into a Policy Rules Conformity Document, soon renamed the Gaia-X Compliance Document. According to Gaia-X, both earlier texts ceased to be normative deliverables in their own right once the Compliance Document appeared.
The framework now sets a baseline scheme, Gaia-X Standard Compliance, against three optional labels. Standard Compliance is the minimum for taking part in the ecosystem, while Labels 1 to 3 add successively stricter requirements and stronger assurance mechanisms. Labels 2 and 3 require manual verification by a conformity assessment body, and Label 3 also requires the provider's headquarters to be in the European Union.
A label is issued for a particular service offering once it has been validated against the relevant scheme. Technically it is a signed, machine-readable W3C Verifiable Credential naming the participant, the service offering, the assessment scheme applied, the issuer, the date of issue and the period of validity.
In November 2022, the first batch of 176 compliant service were released by CISPE members.. In June 2025, the first suite for Gaia-X compliance has been released. In November 2025, the CISPE-operated catalogue developed by CDE presented at the Gaia-X Summit in Porto contained more than 600 services from 15 providers. Five providers — Cloud Temple, Thésée DataCenter, Opiquad, OVHcloud and Seeweb — were the first to offer services with the Gaia-X Label Level 3.
Use cases Live use cases demonstrate how Gaia-X concepts ease data space management or data exchange. Gaia‑X is in its implementation phase, with more than 180 data spaces.Francesca Musiani (CNRS Research Director), Gaia‑X: the bid for a sovereign European cloud, 18 June 2025.
Lighthouse Data Spaces Some data spaces are recognised by the Gaia-X AISBL as the best examples to showcase how Gaia-X concepts can foster European data sovereignty and value creation.
These data spaces span across diverse sectors such as the automotive, aeronautics and space or manufacturing industry, but also cloud services.
Lighthouse Projects Lighthouse Projects aims to create data exchange platforms based on transparency, trust and openness. Many sectors are targeted, like agriculture, mobility, industry, health, energy or finance.
This projects are the frontrunners towards setting up trust for data exchanges and data services thanks to use of the Gaia-X Trust Framework
Use case testimonials Some testimonials are also published by the Gaia-X AISBL to better understand how Gaia-X Concepts are enabling secure and trustworthy data exchanges, thanks to down-to-earth examples.
These examples, spanning from road condition monitoring, to perfect component fit within the manufacturing industry, are the following ones:
TAMIS in TEMS : basis for a data hub for the audiovisual industry MERLOT : smart tool for student career management X-ROAD : platform for data space creation Digital Road Condition monitoring : proactive tool for road maintenance Ideal Component Matching : ensuring components are matched accurately. French-Korean Professional Mobility Tool : career management tool for Korean professionals looking for opportunities in France.
Gaia-X Digital Clearing Houses Gaia-X Digital Clearing Houses are the entry point where participants or data services can be automatically scanned regarding Gaia-X conformity rules.
They are organised in a network of nodes and are running the technical Gaia-X components linked to Gaia-X Conformity (Gaia-X Registry or Gaia-X Compliance engine for example), as expressed in the Gaia-X Specifications.
Thus, calling one of the Gaia-X Digital Clearing House is the practical way to determine your eligibility to the Gaia-X Conformity rules.
All the Gaia-X Digital Clearing Houses are interconnected, and can be reached independently.
The list of active Gaia-X Digital Clearing Houses, including the version of code they are running for each component, is provided on a portal powered by Gaia-X AISBL.
Organisation
The association: Gaia-X AISBL