EBU joins data and cloud body Gaia-X

The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) has joined Gaia-X, the Brussels-based Association promoting the establishment of a European federated data and cloud infrastructure.

The public broadcaster organisation said that as the first media organisation to participate in the Gaia-X project, the EBU would promote the creation of dedicated data spaces for media and gather media-specific requirements for the Gaia-X federated infrastructure and service catalogue.

The EBU said that as its members move more of their services and applications to the cloud, they are concerned about vendor lock-in, data sovereignty, GDPR compliance and environmental sustainability.

Media organizations also face technical and business challenges such as real-time and large file transfers, semantic data interoperability, and cost effectiveness, the EBU said.

The Gaia-X Association (AISBL), aims to ensure European companies can access cloud platforms that are secure, interoperable and energy efficient, and that guarantee data privacy and sovereignty. It also says it is seeking to foster a cloud ecosystem aligned with European values and laws, enabling vertical and horizontal chains where data can be easily exchanged but still controlled within trusted data spaces.

“We are happy to welcome EBU as a Gaia-X member and work together on a seamless direction with shared values of transparency, openness, data protection and security,” said Francesco Bonfiglio, the Gaia-X Association CEO.

“As a Gaia-X member, EBU can now federate these media needs at a European scale. We will define use cases and consolidate media-specific requirements, enabling media companies to adopt competitive multi-cloud solutions, including at network edges, that can easily be interconnected, configured and decommissioned, and that guarantee a secured and controlled access to media data. This also has the potential to generate new business opportunities across the entire media supply chain,” said EBU Ddirector of technology and innovation Antonio Arcidiacono.