OPC Foundation and International Data Spaces Association are collaborating to connect the largest ecosystem for industrial interoperability to international data spaces
Scottsdale, AZ – March 26th, 2025 – The OPC Foundation, a global organization committed to advancing the development and adoption of industrial communication standards, is pleased to announce an expanded collaboration with the International Data Space Association (IDSA) aiming to enhance interoperability and data governance in the automation industry. The OPC Foundation connects the largest ecosystem for semantic interoperability in the automation world through OPC UA including over 150 semantic domain standards. This extensive framework ensures seamless communication and integration across various automation systems, fostering a more connected and efficient industrial environment.
The IDSA complements this effort by extending the system with a robust governance foundation that specifies who can use data, for how long, and under what conditions, ensuring secure and controlled data sharing. In short, a standard which enforces data sovereignty.
This collaboration will empower companies to leverage both standards seamlessly in their architectures and update their existing environments quickly with governance for the sharing of the data collected and provided with OPC UA.
Stefan Hoppe, OPC Foundation and Lars Nagel, IDSA
Lars Nagel, CEO of IDSA, highlighted their shared dedication to complementing each other’s roles in enabling interoperable, sovereign and trustworthy data sharing. “By deepening our cooperation, OPC Foundation and IDSA aim to drive further advancements in data sharing, promoting meaningful change and facilitating a more connected and trustworthy digital landscape.”
Stefan Hoppe, President and Executive Director of OPC Foundation, continued “Connecting the largest ecosystem of industrial automation to new concepts like data spaces and provides the industry a booster for the deployment of the new concepts. With OPC UA being widely adopted and available in modern and legacy factories and plants, we are proud to provide and help to connect all those assets to IT systems”
The OPC Foundation invites all interested parties to join its “OPC Foundation Cloud Initiative” conference during the Hannover Messe 2025. During the conference information about this strategic collaboration and the current development will be shared with the audience. Save the date:
OPC Foundation Conference “OPC Foundation Cloud Initiative”
When: Wednesday, 02.04.2025 from 01.00pm – 03:00pm
Where: Hannover Messe Convention Center in Room 3A
www.opcfoundation.org/event-detail/conference-hmi25-cloudinitiative
Immediately afterwards, IDSA is organizing the “Data Spaces for Industry event” together with the VDMA at the Hannover Messe Convention Center. Live demonstrations and expert knowledge will showcase how data spaces are changing the global industry. Join us:
Data Spaces for Industry event “Innovate, scale, compete with industrial data spaces”
When: Wednesday, April 2, 2025, 03:00pm to 05:30pm
Where: Hannover Messe Convention Center in Room Berlin
www.internationaldataspaces.org/hm25
About the International Data Spaces Association:
The IDSA is a non-profit organization focusing on establishing and promoting standards for data spaces – trusted environments where organizations can share data while retaining full control over its use. Since 2016, IDSA members have been developing key technologies for data spaces. This work has led to several major achievements, including the IDS Reference Architecture Model (IDS-RAM), the IDSA Rulebook, the Dataspace Protocol, standardization and interoperability efforts, and IDS Certification. These achievements establish the foundation for a fair data economy, setting clear rules for trusted data sharing.
More information: www.internationaldataspaces.org
About the OPC Foundation
The OPC Foundation has been promoting the development and adoption of the OPC information exchange standard since 1996. As an advocate and steward of these specifications, the OPC Foundation’s mission is to help vendors, end users, and software developers achieve interoperability of their manufacturing and automation resources. The OPC Foundation’s mission is to provide the best specifications, technologies, processes, and certification to ensure interoperability between different vendors and different platforms securely and reliably from embedded systems to the enterprise cloud. The Foundation supports over 1010 members from around the world in industrial automation, IT, IoT, IIoT, M2M, Industry 4.0, building automation, machine tools, pharmaceuticals, petrochemical, and smart energy in achieving this goal.
More information: www.opcfoundation.org
Contacts:
Lars Nagel
International Data Spaces Association
Lars.Nagel@internationaldataspaces.org
Stefan Hoppe
President and Executive Director
OPC Foundation
Stefan.Hoppe@OPCFoundation.org
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