"Digital trust is the basic prerequisite for new data-based solutions and digital business models. That's why we need a trustworthy and secure, but also powerful data infrastructure in Europe," says Dr. Frank Melzer, Member of the Management Board for Product and Technology Management at Festo. As the current head of the steering committee of the Industry 4.0 platform, Dr. Frank Melzer helped initiate the GAIA-X project. Festo will be involved in particular in the validation and practical testing of various use cases. "For our customers - and therefore also for us - security and trust are the prerequisites for the successful implementation of new business models with the transparent use of a wide variety of data in a well-integrated ecosystem. It is a key concern for us that the data is not only secure, but that the new digital infrastructure is also based on international openness and partnership," says Dr. Frank Melzer.

Under the chairmanship of Frank Melzer, a holistic 2030 vision for Industry 4.0 entitled "Shaping digital ecosystems globally" was created and presented to the public. The three "fundamental European" values of sovereignty, interoperability and sustainability are at the heart of the vision. Based on this mission statement, the platform developed a ten-point plan, in which the GAIA-X project is also anchored. Other focus projects include the broad application of the Industry 4.0 reference architecture with the so-called administration shell and the development of good practices and contributions to climate-neutral production.

Festo aims to be an innovation leader and therefore the preferred automation partner for its customers worldwide. The focus is on the further development of decentralized, autonomous systems and artificial intelligence (AI), which require a secure data infrastructure. Festo therefore acquired the AI specialist Resolto in April 2018. "The topic of analytics and artificial intelligence will have a huge impact on our product portfolio, for example by enabling AI algorithms to be integrated both into the cloud and directly into Festo components," says Dr. Frank Melzer.