OSLO, Norway – Marking a major milestone in the journey toward a European Data Union, PISTIS held its final event during #DataWeek2026. The workshop, titled “Beyond the Hype: Is Data Trading Worth the Investment?”, brought together industry leaders to showcase real-world ROI and the technical breakthroughs achieved by the project.

Breaking the Silos: Realities and Success Stories

The event opened with a reality check on the state of data sharing. While 67.7% of organizations are currently engaged in data exchange, the majority still struggle with high implementation costs and complex integration. Nuria de Lama (IDC) emphasized that the challenge is helping organizations adopt platform-based architectures that remove the friction of bespoke integrations.

Aviation & Automotive Excellence

The project demonstrated its impact through two powerful sector demonstrations:

  • Aviation: Andreas Mavrodis of Goldair Handling shared how PISTIS helps tackle airport delays by sharing baggage timestamps across airlines and ground handlers. This enables early delay detection and ensures passengers make their connections.

  • Automotive: Rebekka Rank from CARUSO showcased how a standardized API across 30+ manufacturers turns proprietary car data into actionable insights. A highlight was the story of how connected car data was used to track and recover a stolen vehicle across the Mediterranean.

The PISTIS Value-Add: Trust and Valuation

Technical Coordinator, Sotiris Koussouris addressed the two “universal equations” that stall data trading: the Trust Gap and the Pricing Gap.

  • Federated Architecture: PISTIS ensures that data never leaves the owner’s perimeter. Cataloguing and valuation run inside the owner’s infrastructure, meaning trust is enforced by the platform’s architecture, not just policy.
  • Defensible Pricing: By moving away from “gut feel,” PISTIS uses ML-driven models to provide evidence-based data valuation based on quality, demand, and lineage.

Audience Perspectives: The Human Element

Live polling during the event revealed that 76% of the audience believes the vehicle owner should remain in control of car-generated data. “Lack of Trust” was ranked as the primary risk when sharing data externally, followed by security and regulatory compliance.

When asked what would make data more valuable tomorrow, the audience’s top response was clear: “Trust”. Other prominent factors included access, metadata, and reusability.

A Collaborative Future: EUDATA+ and Beyond

In the closing panel, experts discussed the importance of the EUDATA+ cluster and Data Labs in engaging SMEs. The panel concluded that data spaces will not scale on architecture alone; they require:

  • Breaking organizational silos to allow data to flow between sectors.

  • Simplifying the IT stack through standard approaches like ISO 10303 STEP to lower the barrier for SMEs.

  • Focusing on compliance and pricing to turn proprietary data into recurring revenue streams.

As PISTIS reaches its conclusion, it leaves behind a roadmap for a more autonomous and strategically competitive European industry.

PISTIS doesn’t just provide an answer to whether data trading is worth the investment—it removes the reasons it wasn’t.