DLR-PT coordinating German participation in the "IPCEI Industrial Cloud"
22nd September 2021 — How can data traffic within Europe be modernised and regulated? The European project "IPCEI Industrial Cloud", driven by Germany and France, wants to find the answer to this question and thus lay the foundations for a uniform infrastructure for data traffic throughout Europe. IPCEIs – the abbreviation stands for "Important Project of Common European Interest" – are intended to sustainably advance competitiveness, sustainability and value creation in the European Union. In the "IPCEI Industrial Cloud", energy-saving, highly efficient, automated and interconnected cloud infrastructures and services are to be developed by 2026, ensuring European values such as sovereignty, sustainability and equal treatment. In addition, "IPCEI Industrial Cloud" is to provide the infrastructural underpinnings of the European data cloud GAIA-X. The German government is providing 750 million euros for this purpose.
In July, the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) invited German industry to submit project ideas for cloud innovations. Almost 30 outlines with well over one hundred participating companies were submitted, and the most promising have now been selected. Large companies such as SAP, Volkswagen, Siemens, the Schwarz Group and Deutsche Telekom are among them, as are many SMEs and start-ups.
DLR-PT and the VDI Technology Centre are supervising the participating projects from Germany on behalf of the BMWi and are coordinating European networking and public relations work. Currently, the DLR-PT has already helped to review the submitted outlines. "Among other things, we provide scientific support for the overall project and coordinate the EU-wide network," says Dr Patrick Lay, who heads the project at DLR-PT. The projects that have now been selected will now take part in a matchmaking process at European level. "In this process, project outlines from the twelve Member States involved so far will be combined into an integrated overall project. Getting such a mega-project off the ground is an exciting challenge for us as project management agencies," says Patrick Lay.
At a virtual event co-organised by DLR-PT on the 23rd September, the first thing to do is to get to know each other. Together with the BMWi, the DLR project management organisation will present the next steps. The national project consortium is to meet the project partners from the EU member states for the first time on the 6th October. This event is also being co-organised by DLR-PT.
Digital sovereignty moves into focus
With its own specialist department Digital Technologies and Applications, the DLR Project Management Agency has been supporting the BMWi's activities on the digitisation of the economy for many years. The issues of secure data and digital sovereignty have also become increasingly central to the design of funding measures in recent years. The aim is to create assertive new digital services from Germany and Europe. For example, DLR-PT has designed innovation competitions on artificial intelligence and secure digital identities for the BMWi.