15 October 2026, Brussels, Belgium
Data spaces have moved beyond the pilot phase. Now the task is to bring them to a broader audience: to SMEs, to public administration and to new sectors. With the call for tenders for the Data Spaces Hub Germany, the Federal Ministry for Digital Affairs and State Modernisation (BMDS) drives this development forward. acatech – National Academy of Science and Engineering, Fraunhofer ISST, the International Data Spaces Association (IDSA) and the Gaia-X European Association for Data and Cloud AISBL are jointly bidding to coordinate the hub. The consortium is led by the acatech Foundation.
“This consortium brings together influential and independent players of the German and European data space ecosystem. Together, we want to bring the data space approach into widespread use after the successful build-up phase and make it internationally compatible,” says Manfred Rauhmeier, Executive Board Member of the acatech Foundation.
The right step at the right time
Germany now has many successful data space initiatives. The challenge is no longer to explain data spaces, but to make them more widely usable and to unfold their impact in business, administration and society. The new hub continues the work of the data space community and carries the Federal Government’s commitment into the next phase, always in coordination with European data space activities. In recent years, industry, academia and politics have created technical foundations and standards, brought the first data spaces into operation and built a network of committed players. The fact that this work is being continued is an important signal: anyone who wants to make industrial and administrative data usable for sovereign AI applications needs data spaces, and a neutral point of contact that eases entry, pools knowledge and makes the benefits of data sharing visible.
Building on what works
The hub does not have to start from zero. The Gaia-X Hub Germany, which acatech coordinated until August 2026, has brought together a broad community of companies, research institutions, associations and administrations across numerous sectors. The partners are already helping shape Central European data space activities today, from Gaia-X to the Data Spaces Support Centre, as well as standardisation, interoperability and the practical introduction of data spaces in business and administration. The bidding consortium intends to build on these structures, formats and contacts, and to expand, improve and complement them: broadening the scope beyond Gaia-X, uniting the many facets of data spaces, focusing on practical implementation and offering support to those just getting started.
Orientation across the entire data space landscape
If awarded the contract, the hub is to provide orientation on all data space-related activities in Germany and bring all players together:
- business, academia, administration and politics,
- all data space initiatives,
- all sectors,
- all political levels and ministries,
- players at any level of knowledge, from first interest to operating their own data space.
Neutral intermediation, expertise across all service areas
The foundation is a neutral intermediary role. acatech holds overall responsibility; participation in the hub’s offerings is not tied to any membership, and the hub is open to all initiatives and approaches.
The partners combine their complementary strengths: acatech contributes long-standing experience in networking, community management and knowledge transfer, and opens access to the academy network of science and industry. Fraunhofer ISST contributes application-oriented research and technological implementation expertise. IDSA strengthens the consortium with its international community, its leading role in the reference architecture, rulebook, Dataspace Protocol and standardisation, and its expertise in building and scaling data spaces. Gaia-X AISBL complements the alliance with its Trust Framework and the international network of Gaia-X Hubs. Together, the bidding consortium covers all of the hub’s service areas, from the central point of contact and knowledge transfer through business models and technical implementation to onboarding support.
“Sovereignty does not arise from isolation, but from common rules that every side can verify. That is what Gaia-X stands for. The Data Spaces Hub Germany will help ensure that this principle reaches companies and administrations and that trust becomes the foundation of data sharing,” says Ulrich Ahle, CEO, Gaia-X AISBL.
Getting involved
If commissioned, the bidding consortium will closely involve players from business, academia, administration and civil society in the work of the Data Spaces Hub Germany. Interested organisations are invited to discuss the planned participation options (Sounding Board). Contact: stiftung@acatech.de.