Strengthening Europe’s sovereignty and interoperability in Earth observation data

Europe’s Earth and environmental observation landscape is increasingly structured around strong national initiatives that consolidate data assets, computing resources and services in close interaction with scientific communities. Initiatives such as Data Terra RI, ITINERIS Hub and NFDI4Earth illustrate how national investments organise complex ecosystems, combining EOSC nodes, advanced computing capacities and domain-specific services within coherent operational environments.

Building on these foundations, the focus goes beyond data interoperability towards designing infrastructures where data, computing capacities and services are articulated from the outset. Artificial intelligence, and in particular generative AI, acts as a key enabler by transforming FAIR data into machine-actionable resources that support cross-domain integration and operational workflows.

This evolution points towards a capability-oriented European ecosystem, where EOSC, Copernicus, Destination Earth, EuroHPC and AI Factories function as complementary layers enabling reuse and transnational collaboration. In this context, national initiatives serve as practical enablers of coherence, providing the conditions for trusted, scalable and sustainable services supporting science, public policy and societal needs.

The objective of this presentation is to highlight the Data Terra and NFDI4Earth vision on establishing strategic relationships within the EOSC, national RIs and European RIs at the benefit of the Earth and environmental science communities