- 08:00 – 08:30 | Registration & Coffee
- 08:30 – 08:35 | Welcome & Moderation
- 08:35 – 08:40 | Strategic Refocus
- 08:40 – 08:50 | Gaia-X Milestones 2026 & Road Ahead 2027
- 08:50 – 09:30 | Q&A Guests & Journalists
Press
Gaia-X’s role as a first mover in designing a Trust Framework for data spaces is widely recognised. Now, the priority is to turn these foundations into industrial-grade solutions that deliver tangible value. The Gaia-X Summit 2026 will bring together the organisations and expertise needed to accelerate this transition, strengthen European competitiveness and make digital trust an integral part of the data economy.
Catherine Jestin
BoD Chairwoman, Gaia-X; Executive Vice President Digital, Airbus
Vienna marks a hard pivot for Gaia-X. The era of theory is over—that work is almost done. Season 2.0 is strictly a mandate for industrial execution. My mission is to shift this community from architecture to production. We are making automated trust and sovereignty immediate, operational realities for industries built on European values. We are no longer just designing frameworks. We are driving the infrastructure that powers the future of AI. To scale this, we are locking arms with partners to set global standards. This is where the pace changes. This is where we deliver.
Jérôme Léger
Incoming CEO, Gaia-X
Having worked on Gaia-X from its early days, I know the success of Season 2.0 will be measured by what we deliver and the value we create for our members and the wider market. We are focusing on production-ready solutions, stronger interoperability and the practical deployment of trusted data ecosystems, easy to adopt for organisations of every size. The Summit is our opportunity to demonstrate this progress and align the community on the next steps towards adoption at scale. I am looking forward to delivering this together with the team and the community.
Fabian Biegel
COO, Gaia-X
Season 1.0 laid the groundwork with the GXDCH. Season 2.0 brings that trust directly to the end user. We are moving our roadmap to TRL 9, meaning connectors and compliance services that run reliably in production. At the Summit, visitors won’t just hear about it—they will see it live, from automated compliance to real-world demonstrations with data space connectors.
Christoph F. Strnadl,
CTO, Gaia-X
Only through federated, sovereign data spaces can a genuine data economy built on free competition emerge. Effective digital and data sovereignty are the foundation for a strong, growing economy and a free society. As Gaia-X Hub Austria, we are proud to welcome Europe’s leading innovators in this field to the Gaia-X Summit in Vienna.
Press Release Pre-Summit