Nordic Institute for Interoperability Solutions — News archive

NIIS among the founding members of Data Spaces Alliance Finland

Data spaces create opportunities for organisations to accelerate growth and innovation, secure access to critical resources, and enable data sharing between multiple actors. Data space technologies are also important enablers for developing artificial intelligence solutions.

At the end of the Nordic Data Festival 2024 on 10 April, the Data Spaces Alliance Finland network was launched. It provides its members with a unified view of developing cross-organisational solutions.

The 22 founding members of the alliance signed a Memorandum of Understanding, which creates a lightweight governance model for goal-oriented cooperation between the actors. The founding members are:

1001 Lakes, Business Finland, CSC, DataSpace Europe, Fintraffic, Finnish Land Survey, Ministry of Transport and Communications, Headai, Kela, Loihde, MyData Global, Nokia, Nordic Institute for Interoperability Solutions (NIIS), Platform of Trust, Siili Solutions, Sitra, SIX Mobile Work Machines, Smart City Innovation Cluster (SCIC), Struggle Creative, Technology Industries, TIEKE and VTT. 

The Alliance builds on proven cooperation models in Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria, and other countries, as well as on lessons learned from data space initiatives in different sectors.

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Ukraine becomes a Partner of the Nordic Institute for Interoperability Solutions

Ukraine becomes a Partner of the Nordic Institute for Interoperability Solutions (NIIS) to collaborate on the X-Road® data exchange layer and other digital government solutions, participate in respective discussions, and help promote the scope of NIIS.

NIIS, a non-profit association with Estonia, Finland, and Iceland as its Members, focuses on practical collaboration and innovation in digital government solutions. It manages the development of X-Road®, an open-source data exchange layer, and Harmony eDelivery Access®, among other products. Besides Ukraine, the Faroe Islands and the Government of Åland are the current Partners of NIIS.

The partnership with Ukraine is a significant step towards co-development of interoperable digital solutions. Ukraine, as a Partner complementing NIIS’s experience and solution portfolio from its side, can also benefit from the cooperation through knowledge-sharing in technical working groups and further accelerate its digital transformation.

“This partnership shows the commitment of NIIS members and Ukraine to improve digital public infrastructure and highlights the growing importance of international collaboration in this field. As digital challenges transcend national borders, partnerships like this are crucial in building resilient and interconnected digital societies”, says Ville Sirviö, the CEO of NIIS.

“NIIS plays a significant role in driving innovation in digital government and fostering cross-border collaboration. We are excited about the opportunity to partner with NIIS to shape a forward-thinking future together. It's a true honour for our team, particularly as we in Ukraine have firsthand experience in implementing the X-Road model with the Trembita data exchange layer”, says Valeriya Ionan, Deputy Minister for Eurointegration at the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine.

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NIIS Announces Proof of Concept for Revolutionary X-Road 8 “Spaceship”

The Nordic Institute for Interoperability Solutions (NIIS) is thrilled to announce the start of a proof of concept to develop a new major version of the X-Road.

The X-Road 8 “Spaceship” nurtures the proven ecosystem model and security while it takes X-Road to the next level by providing a solid data space infrastructure.

Additional features such as enhanced monitoring and metrics and advanced cloud compatibility are expected to make X-Road 8 an outstanding solution for any public or private organisation.

With the proof of concept, NIIS aims to validate the feasibility of replacing X-Road’s custom protocol stack with data space protocol stack and align X-Road’s trust framework with the Gaia-X trust framework.

Gaia-X is an initiative that develops, based on European values, a digital governance that can be applied to any existing cloud/edge technology stack to obtain transparency, controllability, portability and interoperability across data and services.

Close to the current concept of the X-Road ecosystem, data space is a distributed system defined by a governance framework that enables secure and trustworthy data transactions between participants while supporting trust and data sovereignty.

"Making X-Road a data space solution creates value through additional features, reduces the need for custom development, increases interoperability and provides new opportunities for X-Road users in Europe and worldwide. Combining the strengths of X-Road and data spaces will make X-Road 8 "Spaceship" an outstanding solution", says Ville Sirviö, CEO of NIIS.

The project also tries to ensure smooth integration with previous X-Road versions for backwards compatibility, estimate the changes required for information systems when transitioning to X-Road 8, and assess potential changes to existing X-Road components.

The proof of concept results are expected for review in May 2024. The second half of the year will witness another project to test the results within Estonia’s X-Road ecosystem.

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