The gap is practical. Onboarding a company into a data space today requires infrastructure procurement, technical configuration, identity and credential management, and ongoing compliance maintenance. For large enterprises with dedicated IT teams, this is manageable. For the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that make up the vast majority of industrial supply chains, it is prohibitive.
This is the problem the Data Space Adoption Forum (DSAF) was set up to solve.
What the Data Space Adoption Forum is
The DSAF is an IDSA Working Group, convened by the International Data Spaces Association (IDSA) as a neutral, non-commercial coordination ground. It brings together data space operators, cloud and managed service providers (CSPs and MSPs), trust framework providers, and industry representatives to co-develop the services and distribution mechanisms that make data space participation accessible at scale.
IDSA does not deliver data space services itself. Its role is to provide the neutral coordination layer where players with complementary capabilities can align, co-develop, and agree on shared technical foundations without the risk of one participant’s commercial interests distorting the outcome.
The founding partners of the DSAF include IDSA, Gaia-X, CISPE (Cloud Infrastructure Services Providers in Europe), leading automotive and manufacturing ecosystems, and cloud and managed service providers. This combination of standards bodies, infrastructure providers, and data space operators reflects the full chain required to move from technical specification to market-ready service.
The problem to solve
Industrial data spaces need to scale to millions of participating companies across global supply chains. The current onboarding model cannot support this. Each participant today deploys its own connector stack. Each company procures, configures, and maintains its own infrastructure. Compliance with data space governance requirements must be established from scratch for each organization. The time and cost involved means that, in practice, only large companies can participate.
The DSAF works on an alternative model: participation as a managed service. Under this model, a cloud or managed service provider hosts the data space infrastructure on behalf of its customers. An SME subscribes to a data space onboarding service through a provider it already works with, accesses a compliant and certified environment, and participates in the data space without needing to build or maintain anything itself.
This shifts data space participation from a capital-intensive IT project to a subscription service. It is the same shift that cloud computing made for general enterprise IT, applied to trusted data sharing.
How the forum works
Work inside the DSAF is organized into parallel workstreams that progress solutions from definition through to implementation. These workstreams cover joint technical coordination, shared onboarding foundations, and go-to-market planning. Solutions are not only specified collectively; they are owned and deployed by the participating actors. This means the Forum produces real implementations in operational environments, not specifications that sit on a shelf.
IDSA coordinates the workstreams and ensures alignment across the participating organizations. The Forum operates under IDSA’s governance model, which guarantees neutrality and ensures that outputs can be adopted across multiple data space ecosystems.
Where things stand
The DSAF launched in February 2026. The first production-ready managed service infrastructure is on track for availability by the end of 2026.
This is the right moment for cloud and managed service providers to engage. The technical foundation is being finalized. The first production deployment is scoped and under development, anchored in a real and large-scale use case in the automotive sector. Providers who join now can shape the service model, participate in the first commercial deployments, and position themselves in a distribution channel that will serve all data spaces, across all domains.
How to get involved
There are three ways to participate in the DSAF. The first is full IDSA membership, which gives access to all IDSA Working Groups including the Forum, voting rights on direction, and full ecosystem access. The second is direct sponsorship, which provides visibility and participation rights in Forum activities and joint go-to-market. The third is a subscription model, which gives seat-based access to Forum workstreams and materials.
For cloud and managed service providers, the Forum is a direct route into a market that their existing customer relationships already position them to serve. The technical work is progressing. The deployment window is opening. The question is whether your organization is in the room.
Contact: DSAF@internationaldataspaces.org | data-space-adoption-forum.org
