The partners behind the Accelerator see a risk in the current pace. When each initiative develops its own foundation, the result is duplicated investment, developer communities that work in isolation from each other and limited interoperability between the data spaces that emerge. The Accelerator was set up to offer a different path, with a core that is already built and a community that is already working on it.
That core is Eclipse Tractus-X, the open source project behind Catena-X, hosted at the Eclipse Foundation. It counts more than 330 active contributors and more than 79 repositories, ships quarterly releases and is licensed under Apache 2.0. The code implements the Dataspace Protocol (DSP) and the Decentralized Claims Protocol (DCP). It is the second largest open source project at the Eclipse Foundation.
Tractus-X is an operating system for data spaces. It is a core, built and maintained by a community, that contains the building blocks many data ecosystems need. Among them are trusted data sharing, digital identities, interoperability services, governance foundations and implementations of open standards. On top of this shared foundation, each industry, region or project adds its own capabilities, services and applications.
Tractus-X has a concept for this. It is called KIT, short for Keep It Together. An initiative builds its differentiating functionality as a KIT, contributes it back and lets others reuse, improve and extend it. Chem-X and Construct-X, launched this year with the Catena-X Association, show how industry variants grow on the common core. The intention is that national, European and international data spaces can do the same.
The Accelerator started in September 2026, runs for three years and is funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy. ARENA2036 leads the programme and brings its demonstration environment. The Catena-X Association takes care of community operations and internationalisation. Fraunhofer ISST covers technology and governance.IDSA leads stakeholder management and supports internationalisation. The purpose of the programme is to grow the community behind the core, into more industries, more countries and more developers and contributors. Four contributions are open now.
First, tell the project what is missing. Communication in the programme runs in both directions. Data space initiatives, open source projects, industry associations and public bodies that have looked at Tractus-X and decided against it hold information the partners need. A frank reply about blockers, gaps or licensing concerns counts as a contribution.
Second, build your KIT and bring it in. Many organisations have built connectors, identity services or federated services for their own data spaces. Some of these could serve everyone who builds on Tractus-X. Which components belong in the shared core and which stay industry specific is decided together with the community, and that decision needs the components on the table. Development happens in the community, and the community is whoever shows up.
Third, help answer the financing question. Many organisations use a shared open source component. Few of them maintain it. The partners will work on a model, possibly a foundation or an association, to keep Tractus-X maintained beyond the funding period, and the community has been invited to contribute ideas. Organisations whose own data spaces depend on the core have the strongest reason to send them.
Fourth, join the onboarding programme, as mentee or as mentor. Guided classes of six months are planned that take a newcomer from first contact to a first use case, with experienced community members alongside. Until the classes start, interested organisations receive individual sessions on setting up a data space, federated services, Eclipse Dataspace Components (EDC) connectors or identities. Joining early means more individual attention.
The invitation extends across borders. The Accelerator connects with the Data Spaces Support Centre (DSSC), the international IMX community and partners in further countries, and IDSA will organise events around the globe to involve partners, supporters and contributors wherever they are. Two dates are set. On 6 November a hackathon works for one day on a new portal for Tractus-X. On 3 and 4 December the seventh Tractus-X Community Days bring users and contributors together around current developments, new use cases and the direction of the project.
