Flex partnered with T-Systems to migrate ECU data exchange to Catena-X, enabling secure, multiregional, real-time validation across global production sites. Using T-Systems’ Connect & Integrate solution, Flex achieved end-to-end integration, API and Cofinity-X interface testing, and a fully validated production setup. This scalable dataspace foundation now supports future use cases including Product Carbon Footprint, Certificate Management, Battery Pass, and global traceability, while maintaining full data sovereignty.

Sovereign connectivity in dataspaces requires automating network access to ensure security, compliance, and operational scale. In the Data Intelligence Hub, we replace manual firewall updates with a declarative, Kubernetes-native model using Custom Resource Definitions (CRDs). Customers define their allowed IP ranges through a self-service portal, which generates an IpAccessPolicy object representing the desired state. A controller then reconciles this state with the underlying infrastructure, automatically updating Kubernetes Ingress configurations and preventing drift. This architecture ensures auditability, validates inputs before enforcement, and keeps network access aligned with the principles of data sovereignty across multi-tenant environments.

Flex leverages Catena-X to build a reusable, standards-based automotive data ecosystem. By starting small and scaling through economies of scope, Flex delivers multiregional data solutions for ECU management, certificate compliance, and supply-chain traceability, enabling sovereign data sharing, faster innovation, and cost-efficient reuse across multiple OEMs and use cases.

Sovereign observability is now essential as organizations operate Kubernetes across fragmented multi-cloud environments. Traditional monitoring approaches fail when logs and metrics cannot leave their originating region due to compliance and data-residency constraints. This architecture solves the challenge by decoupling storage from querying: each cloud environment writes logs and metrics to its own sovereign object storage while a central observer cluster queries them on demand. Leveraging Prometheus, Thanos, Loki, and Promtail, the system provides global visibility, secure mTLS communication, isolated buckets, and a unified Grafana experience — all without violating sovereignty rules.

In December 2025, T-Systems advanced Catena-X adoption in Asia through two key events: the Catena-X Supplier Onboarding Day in Tokyo and the Global Data Spaces Roundtable in Beijing. From practical supplier onboarding to large-scale automotive pilots in China, discussions focused on regulatory pressure, data sovereignty, and secure cross-company data exchange. Together with partners such as Siemens, BMW Group, BASF, and Flex, T-Systems demonstrated how trusted dataspaces enable scalable, compliant collaboration across global automotive value chains.