AIC and Innovalia launch the world’s first Catena-X Competence Centre
It will help companies in the sector acquire the capabilities needed to benefit from this new digital infrastructure, develop applications and share information
Last Thursday, 28 May, the new Catena-X Competence Centre was inaugurated in Bizkaia. The new facility has been created to help automotive companies advance in their digital transformation and effectively join the new Internet of data enabled by the infrastructure behind Catena-X.
The centre, promoted by AIC – Automotive Intelligence Center and Innovalia, is the first of its kind worldwide and will be located at AIC’s facilities in Amorebieta, where it will include a dedicated space for the development and testing of solutions based on industrial data spaces.
The new centre aims to become a secure, neutral and open point of reference for the sector, providing an environment that simplifies access to the Catena-X ecosystem, an international initiative designed to increase the competitiveness of the automotive industry through trusted digital solutions. This initiative will enable suppliers and technology companies to work closely with manufacturers in developing Catena-X-based solutions and a shared methodology for secure data exchange.
In addition, the centre has been designed to accelerate the deployment of digital solutions and the development of applications capable of sharing information securely and efficiently on an unprecedented scale in the automotive industry, making it easier for companies to access the new digital infrastructure promoted by Catena-X.
According to Inés Anitua, CEO of AIC, “this initiative is a tangible example of the recent Distrito AIC announcement, in which data-related aspects play a leading role in concepts such as the one we are presenting today and in living labs.”
According to Oscar Lázaro, Managing Director of the Innovalia Association, “the launch of the Catena-X Competence Centre is key to enabling the digital sector to provide trusted solutions in this new context and to ensuring that the automotive sector has the tools needed for effective collaboration with the ecosystem, making data a driver of competitiveness, efficiency and sustainability.”
For her part, Ainara Basurko, Deputy for Economic Promotion at the Provincial Council of Bizkaia, highlighted at the close of the event that Catena-X “is a gateway to a new way of competing, a space to share data with confidence, create smarter solutions and strengthen the automotive value chain. It is another step towards ensuring that Bizkaia remains an industrial, innovative and connected territory linked to the advanced mobility of the future.”
The initiative is fully aligned with the vision of AIC Phase 5 and Distrito AIC, reinforcing strategic areas such as industrial data spaces, interoperability and data sovereignty, all of which are key elements for advanced mobility and the new industrial digital economy.
The inauguration event brought together high-level public and private representatives, both national and international, from Catena-X itself as well as from companies and organisations across the sector. During the event, the Catena-X network and the main use cases driven by the automotive ecosystem were presented. The services and infrastructures that the new Centre will make available to the sector were also introduced.
In addition to the presentations, attendees were able to discover the centre’s capabilities first-hand through a visit to the infrastructures, tools and services it will offer.
During the event, the International Data Spaces Association (IDSA) shared for the first time the details of the Data Space Accelerator (DSA) programme, which will be promoted within Catena-X through the CatenaUP initiative. The programme will provide the sector with new opportunities to fund and accelerate the incorporation of small, medium-sized and large companies into the Catena-X ecosystem.
With this inauguration, the Catena-X Competence Centre aims to equip the sector with the key capabilities needed to participate in a connected and efficient environment. It is therefore set to become a strategic asset in making the national automotive sector an international digital benchmark, ready to face the challenges of the future.
The Catena-X Competence Centre is an initiative partially funded by the European Union – NextGenerationEU במסגרת the C-SpAICe project, within the Sectoral Data Spaces Grant Programme – Second Call of the Ministry for Digital Transformation and Public Service.