Keynote highlights

Framing Dataspaces beyond Robotics – Why Governed Data Collaboration Matters

Till Christopher Lech of SINTEF Digital offered a cross-domain perspective, arguing that data spaces are already moving from pilot rhetoric to early operational deployment in industrial, mobility, healthcare, and smart city ecosystems – and that robotics can build on these experiences rather than starting from scratch. He emphasised that the OT-IT gap remains a distinctive barrier for robotics, and that the field must prioritise high-impact use cases with clear value over building infrastructure first. The Oslofjord Scenario (GEO4WATER project) was presented as a compelling example of multi-actor data collaboration driving real-world decisions.

PLIADES: AI-Enabled Data Lifecycle Optimisation & Data Spaces Integration

Dr. Dimitrios Giakoumis presented the PLIADES project (Grant No. 101135988), a Horizon Europe initiative coordinated by CERTH/ITI. PLIADES develops an advanced AI-enabled data integration framework designed to interconnect diverse data spaces across Mobility, Energy, Industry, Healthcare, and Green Deal domains.

AI-based Robotics in the RoX Ecosystem

Dr. Michael Suppa presented the RoX project, a €55 million R&D initiative funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWE) involving 20+ partners including ABB, Boehringer Ingelheim, DFKI, DLR, Mercedes-Benz, Siemens, and Rheinmetall. RoX focuses on lowering the entry barriers to robot-based automation through AI, with use cases spanning loading & unloading, picking & kitting, production, and commissioning. The ecosystem relies on a decentralised dataspace for sovereign data exchange, with semantic interoperability (AAS, OPC UA, AutomationML, ROS) as a cornerstone. A live demonstration of the “Continuous AI Model Improvement” service – sharing robot perception snapshots across sites via the RoX dataspace connector – illustrated the maturity of the approach.

Panel discussion

The panel discussion – which ran over its allotted time due to the depth and enthusiasm of audience engagement – brought together all keynote speakers along with Cem Gülec (DG CONNECT, European Commission) to debate three core questions:

• How can data spaces accelerate innovation for AI developers, robotics providers, and end-users?
• Which advanced cross-domain applications are emerging through data spaces?
• What are the key AI/robotics-related challenges that must be tackled to fully leverage data spaces in real-world operational environments?

Audience questions reflected a broad range of expertise levels – from those newly encountering the concept to experienced practitioners – underscoring both the growing interest in and the maturity challenges of operational data spaces for robotics.