In June 2026, IDSA and the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Dharwad signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to jointly support the data space ecosystem in India. The agreement reflects close to a year of dialogue across both organisations and a wider network of contributors.
An academic partner with reach
IIT Dharwad is an ambitious institution, it operates within a network that spans established industry partners, government bodies and other academic institutions across India. That connectivity is part of what makes it a useful anchor for this kind of initiative. Building a data space ecosystem is as much an organisational challenge as a technical one, and it requires someone who can convene people across sectors over a sustained period.
What is actually planned
The MoU sets out a practical work programme that covers several concrete areas. IDSA and IIT Dharwad will develop business-driven use cases across sectors including telecommunications, automotive, manufacturing, agriculture, smart mobility and railways, with telecommunications and automotive as the initial focus. Alongside that, the partners will run joint projects designed to demonstrate the economic value of data spaces in practice.
Building broader awareness is also part of the plan. That includes outreach to organisations across India that are considering data sharing approaches, as well as support for connecting corporates, government agencies and industry bodies to accelerate implementation.
The collaboration will also produce joint publications: white papers, case studies, market research and technical reports. A national data space think tank is a stated goal, bringing together universities, public-private organisations and government bodies.
The longer-term aim is an IDSA Hub and a dedicated Competence Centre in India. The India Dataspace Task Force, to be established through an upcoming bootcamp workshop, will set the priorities and sequence for what gets built and when.
The people involved
The MoU was signed by Lars Nagel, CEO of IDSA, and Thorsten Hülsmann, CFO of IDSA, together with Dr. Kalyan Bhattacharjee and Dr. Koteswararao Kondepu from IIT Dharwad. Shanawaz Sheik (IDSA Ambassador), Dr.-Ing. Ahmad J. Rusumdar, Christoph Mertens and Anna Derevianko were instrumental in bringing the collaboration to this point.
“India has the scale, the sectors and the institutional appetite to build something significant here. What has been missing is a structured way to connect those pieces. This partnership is a starting point for that.”
Christoph Mertens, Head of Adoption | IDSA
Where things stand
India’s data space ecosystem is taking shape. Early institutional commitment is building, and the partnership between IDSA and IIT Dharwad adds a formal foundation to that momentum. The bootcamp workshop is the next concrete step, and the task force it produces will set the direction for what follows.
