What is the Pontus-X ecosystem for Gaia-X?
The Pontus-X ecosystem, a pioneering Pan-European digital service ecosystem in Gaia-X, stands out for its full decentralization. It facilitates technical data-sovereign data sharing and digital service monetization, all while strictly adhering to the rules of the Gaia-X Trust Framework.
It allows companies and institutions to consume and offer AI, software, data and infrastructure services in the Pontus-X ecosystem while remaining in control of their IP and sensitive data, thus meeting GDPR and IT security requirements. Our portals provide a place to publish, discover, select, and consume digital service offerings, providing a user interface to interact with federation and other ecosystem services. Besides the portals, all services can be managed and consumed programmatically through libraries such as Nautilus.
Within Pontus-X, you can utilize federated analysis, machine learning (ML) algorithms and AI (Artificial Intelligence) services to extract valuable information from data services or offer access to sensitive data without exposing it to unnecessary third-party or compliance risks. One of the core features of the Pontus-X ecosystem for Gaia-X is a data access and orchestration mechanism called Compute-to-Data (CtD). CtD enables data owners to grant only compute access to their data without creating copies in other environments you do not control. The data can remain in a secure environment with the owner to minimize data-leaks risk. The underlying software components enable you to granularly control your exposure to third-party services within the full cloud-to-edge continuum. Pontus-X goes beyond the federation services by natively supporting settling business cases through EU-regulated e-money EUROe and supporting sustainable business operations for all participants providing infrastructure and services.
The Pontus-X ecosystem for Gaia-X was deployed and officially launched by deltaDAO in 2021 during the first Gaia-X Hackathon event and has been continuously developed, evolved, and grown since then.
Today, Pontus-X features the complete set of federation services, added ecosystem services from various providers, and is connected to the Gaia-X Digital Clearing Houses (GXDCH), the Gaia-X Compliance Service, and the Gaia-X Registry. It features hundreds of service offerings from Europe and across the Gaia-X domains while rapidly enabling the community to develop digital services for an open ecosystem.
The Pontus-X ecosystem is designed to empower all participants, allowing them to become a federation without relying on any centralized component. This unique structure ensures that no single point of failure or control exists within its stack. Participants can contribute and share the common infrastructure, and any participant or federator can cease participation at any time, without disrupting the ecosystem's function. This flexibility supports a full range of business models for all participants, ensuring the ecosystem's sustainability.
The federated ecosystem services of Pontus-X are bolstered by a wide range of applications and open-source software, particularly in the form of smart contracts. Pontus-X leverages free open-source software from the Ocean Protocol software stack to support a variety of services, including data exchange, catalogue, contracting, and orchestration of software, infrastructure, and data services.