Agreement to Jointly Promote the Dataspace Technical Concept As “Open Data Spaces”

October 15, 2025
Data Society Alliance
Joint Release：
Information-technology Promotion Agency, Japan
Robot Revolution & Industrial IoT Initiative
The University of Tokyo

Information-technology Promotion Agency, Japan (IPA) has reached an agreement with the Data Society Alliance (DSA), Robot Revolution & Industrial IoT Initiative (RRI), and The University of Tokyo(Interfaculty Initiative in Information Studies), to newly designate “Open Data Spaces” — a technical concept for dataspaces and its accompanying technical-specification suite — as the common specification for dataspaces initiatives in Japan and to jointly promote it.

Based on the decision announced herein, major dataspace initiatives in Japan will be aligned within the technical concept of Open Data Spaces including activities both domestic and international undertaken by DSA under the DATA-EX initiative, and industrial data sharing activities under the RRI in addition to Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI)’s Ouranos-related initiatives.

In cooperation with the relevant organizations, IPA will establish a secretariat to facilitate the promotion and dissemination of Open Data Spaces. Also, through public–private–academic collaboration, IPA will lead efforts to consolidate, publicize, and advance this technical concept. IPA also plans to convene an international event, provisionally titled the “Open Data Spaces Summit,” aimed at engaging industry and technical communities worldwide. Going forward, updates and information about Open Data Spaces will be published on the newly launched official website: https://www.ipa.go.jp/en/digital/opendataspaces.

Under the Ouranos Ecosystem initiative, IPA has been promoting “Ouranos Ecosystem Dataspaces” as a technical concept to realize industrial adoption of data spaces. (Note 1) Open Data Spaces refines the positioning of Ouranos Ecosystem Data Spaces and has been redefined as a more open and neutral technical concept — together with an accompanying suite of technical specifications — to ensure international interoperability with dataspace specifications such as International Data Spaces.

Based on the decision announced herein, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI)’s Ouranos-related initiatives, activities both domestic and international undertaken by DSA under the DATA-EX initiative, and industrial data sharing activities under the RRI have all agreed to reference the Open Data Spaces Reference Architecture Model (ODS-RAM) and the Open Data Spaces Protocol (ODP) as common specifications. As a result, major dataspace initiatives in Japan will be aligned within the technical concept of Open Data Spaces.

Table 1 Overview of Open Data Spaces

The relationships among artifacts in Open Data Spaces are shown in Figure 2. The ODS-RAM, an architecture model that focuses on the service lifecycle needed for rapid industrial implementation of data spaces, forms the base; the ODP, which concretizes the technical specifications of ODS-RAM, is defined as the technical-specification suite; ODS Middleware are open-source reference implementations and SDKs intended to reduce the cost for developers of commercial services to comply with the protocols.

Open Data Spaces is an open, technology-neutral technical concept promoted through the Ouranos Ecosystem, an industrial initiative led by the METI, and consists of a suite of technical specifications (standards proposals). The renaming and re-positioning from Ouranos Ecosystem Data Spaces to Open Data Spaces and the resulting changes in relationships are summarized in Figure 3 and Table 2.

Table.2 Legacy–New Correspondence in Positing Open Data Spaces

*Handling of artifacts is currently under discussion with relevant organizations.

To swiftly facilitate joint promotion and external communication of Open Data Spaces, IPA will establish a secretariat function and coordinate with relevant organizations. Design leadership for Open Data Spaces will inherit the organizational framework of Ouranos Ecosystem Data Spaces (Note 1) and will be undertaken by the IPA Digital Architecture Design Center (DADC). (Open Data Spaces Chief Architect: Michitaka TSUDA)

In the current fiscal year, to further expand and disseminate Open Data Spaces within industry and the developer community, IPA will undertake a revision of ODS-RAM and the formulation of ODP. IPA will also compile a guidebook for ODS participants to assist with building and joining dataspaces. As developer assets, reference-implementation software and SDKs for the protocols developed under the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization’s (NEDO) “Project for the Development and Pilot of a Data Sharing System to Realize the Ouranos Ecosystem” — which will reference ODS-RAMV1.0 and incorporate DADC advisory guidance — are scheduled to be released as open source by the end of this fiscal year.

Furthermore, IPA plans to convene an international event provisionally titled the “Open Data Spaces Summit” to promote Open Data Spaces as a global technical concept and to engage industry and technical communities worldwide.

With the establishment of this joint-promotion framework, IPA will also pursue international cooperation with organizations such as IEEE and the International Open Forum on Data Society (IOFDS), and will work toward international disseminations that references ODS-RAM.

・About IPA Digital Architecture Design Center (IPA DADC)
Information-technology Promotion Agency, Japan (IPA) is an policy implementing organization under the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry that aims to realize a better society and quality of life through data and digital technologies. IPA fosters an ecosystem that connects industry, academia, and government so that data and human insight unite to elevate organizational intelligence. It supports the development of digital society through three core missions: “Provision of digital infrastructure,” “Training of digital talent,” and “Ensuring cybersecurity.” The Digital Architecture Design Center (DADC) leads Open Data Spaces as a neutral organization under the Ouranos Ecosystem initiative, overseeing architecture design for ODS to avoid vendor lock-in and ensure international interoperability. DADC also provides advisory to selected project contractors with respect to protocol design and middleware development for data spaces in the NEDO project.

・About Data Society Alliance (DSA)
Established in April 2021. Through collaboration among the private sector, the public sector, and academia, it aims to create a prosperous society (a data society) by facilitating fair and DFFT (Data Free Flow with Trust). It works toward providing collaborative services (DATA-EX) to help realize a data-driven society, contributing both domestically and internationally. Furthermore, it leads the activities of the IEEE SA DTS (Data Trading System) Working Group and the IOFDS (International Open Forum on Data Society), promoting international standardization and frameworks for global collaboration.

・About Robot Revolution & Industrial IoT Initiative (RRI)
The Robot Revolution & Industrial IoT Initiative (RRI) is a private-led organizational platform to promote the “Robot Revolution” stated in the “New Robot Strategy” (2015/2/10, The Headquarters for Japan’s Economic Revitalization). In “New Robot Strategy”, robot (including manufacturing and industrial IoT) is widely defined as a system that execute tasks by utilizing digital and network technology, advanced sensors, and artificial intelligence, and the strategy aims the following targets. RRI is acting as an open innovation platform for wide range of stakeholders to collaborate and make concrete actions to realize these targets.

Robot revolution aims for:
1) Drastic enhancement of robot creation power to be the world leading robot innovation base
2) World leading robot utilizing society
3) Demonstrating of initiative in the world for the new robot age with IoT technology

・About The Interfaculty Initiative in Information Studies, The University of Tokyo
The Interfaculty Initiative in Information Studies (III) at The University of Tokyo, centered on the Research Center for Ubiquitous Information Society Infrastructure (Director: Noboru Koshizuka), promotes research and educational initiatives to advance the data-driven society. These include the International Testbed for Data Space Technologies, the IDSA Japan Hub, the xIPF Consortium (provisional), and the University of Tokyo Open Data Center. The III also organizes “Data Space Week,” an event featuring multiple international conferences on data spaces (Data Spaces Week 2025 will be held from October 14 to 17, 2025). In recent years, III has conducted research on a new form of data-driven intelligence (DDI) that integrates data spaces with AI agents.

IPA Digital Architecture Design Center
E-mail: dadc-info@ipa.go.jp