The Catena-X Automotive Network and the OPC Foundation have collaborated to accelerate standardized, cross-company data sharing across the manufacturing industry. The partnership focuses on supporting the upcoming EU regulation requiring a digital product passport (DPP) by 2027, which demands trusted, machine-readable product data across entire value chains.
This cooperation brings together two ecosystems:
- Catena-X, the open, collaborative data space for the automotive industry, enabling sovereign, standardized data-sharing, based on interoperable infrastructure and semantic templates
- OPC Foundation, the organization for industrial interoperability and the creator of OPC UA, the standard for secure and semantically enriched information exchange.
By aligning OPC UA’s industrial modelling capabilities with the governance framework and cloud-based infrastructure of Catena-X, the two organizations aim to simplify data integration, reduce reporting errors and enhance compliance with emerging regulatory demands like the DPP.
The parties agree to cooperate in the following four core areas.
- Semantic integration: Combine the OPC UA information modelling and Catena-X semantic templates to create a repository of interoperable, machine-readable models. This technology backbone will also support automated DPP generation from production data.
- Open-source reference implementations: Jointly develop and provide open-source reference implementations for key dataspace and interoperability components, enabling straightforward integration of OPC UA-based systems into the Catena-X data ecosystem.
- Reference architecture alignment: Align the OPC Foundation’s Cloud Initiative reference architecture with Catena-X’s dataspace architecture to enable deployment from the shopfloor to the supply chain.
- Industrial ecosystem enablement: Empower companies to leverage their existing OPC UA tools and infrastructure to meet emerging regulatory requirements, particularly the DPP, while reducing integration costs and accelerating time-to-compliance.
“The OPC Foundation provides rich, secure and proven access to standardized information—an essential foundation for digital transformation,” said Oliver Ganser, chairman of the board at Catena-X. By linking this data to the Catena-X ecosystem, we turn standardized information into cross-company value. This collaboration benefits both ecosystems and marks a key step toward end-to-end data chains at scale and cross-industry solutions, like the digital product passport.”
Stefan Hoppe, president and executive director of OPC Foundation, continued: "This collaboration brings together two strong ecosystems—OPC UA, as a globally accepted standard for industrial interoperability, and Catena-X, as a pioneering data-space initiative for the automotive industry. The combination of proven standardization and sovereign data exchange provides companies with a practical bridge from the shop floor to the cloud. Catena-X contributes significant added value, particularly in meeting regulatory requirements such as the digital product passport and enabling cross-company use of data models, which is also a key pillar of the OPC Foundation’s Cloud Initiative. Together, we are building a robust foundation for sustainable and efficient digitalization."
