IONOS has been chosen by the European Commission to develop a secure and intelligent middleware platform that will allow access to data, empowering cloud-to-edge federations for data spaces in Europe. This is the first contract awarded within the Simpl project, which has a total budget of 150 million euros.
In addition to IONOS, other members of the consortium include Aruba (Italy), Capgemini Nederland (Netherlands), Engineering International Belgium (Belgium), and COSMOTE Global Solutions (Belgium).
Development of an open-source software package
The contract will last for three years and involves the development of the open-source software package “Simpl-Open,” which supports data spaces and other cloud-to-edge federation initiatives. The consortium is also conducting preliminary studies for the next two stages of the Simpl-Open package:
– “Simpl-Labs,” an environment for all sectoral data spaces that want to experiment with Simpl-Open before deploying it for their needs.
– “Simpl-Live,” multiple instances for specific sectoral data spaces, in which the European Commission plays an active role: Public Procurement Data Space (PPDS), European Health Data Space (EEDS), Language Data Space (LDS), European Open Science Cloud, Destination Earth, and Data Space for Smart and Sustainable Cities and Communities (DSSSC).
In addition to Simpl, IONOS is also involved in other EU technological projects, such as the projects of the EU Digital Europe Program – Development of DOME (Distributed Open Marketplace for Europe Cloud and Edge Services), DeployAI (European AI on Demand Platform), and DeployEMDS (Data Space for Mobility), as well as IPCEI-CIS (Important Projects of Common European Interest for Next Generation Cloud Infrastructure and Services).