Automotive

T-Systems Connect & Integrate has been certified for the Product Carbon Footprint use case under the latest Catena-X Titan release, supporting standardized exchange of product-level carbon data according to PCF rulebook 4.0 and Catena-X standard CX-0136. As OEMs come to depend on reliable and traceable CO₂ information from their supply chains, suppliers need a practical way to provide it without building and operating dataspace infrastructure themselves. Delivered as a managed, cloud-agnostic service, Connect & Integrate covers the path from collecting and preparing carbon information through to securely sharing it with business partners — a step from isolated sustainability reporting toward interoperable Scope 3 and product-level carbon data chains. The certification adds to a portfolio spanning advisory, onboarding, connectivity and productive business applications, including Company Certificate Management and Traceability, positioning T-Systems as a single partner across the whole Catena-X journey. The capability is already in use, with T-Systems supporting Ford in connecting more than 70 suppliers worldwide to Catena-X.

Exchanging a certificate through Catena-X is only the first step. For automotive suppliers managing growing certificate portfolios, the real work lies in maintaining certificates across sites and business partners, monitoring expiry dates, tracking what has been published and acting on OEM responses. Connect & Integrate from T-Systems is evolving from a certificate exchange solution into an enterprise-ready certificate control system: a central cockpit for inventory and lifecycle activities, dedicated certificate and site views, a consolidated view of partner responses, site information drawn from Cofinity-X, and detailed technical logs when auditing is required. Combined with AI-assisted preparation already in production across hundreds of customers, it creates one connected journey from preparing certificate data to controlling what happens across the entire certificate lifecycle.

Connect & Integrate brings the T-Systems AI power within the solution to support organizations scale up and become efficient in their business workflows within Catena-X. The cross-use-case AI layer sits at the intersection of data preparation and exchange as a business enabler directly within the workflows.

In November 2025, the first peer-to-peer dataspace transaction between Korea and Europe was completed, with L&F (Korea) sharing product carbon footprint data with the automotive division of a major European Tier 1. Orchestrated by Prof. Chaisung Lim of Konkuk University and enabled by T-Systems' Dataspace-as-a-Service, the exchange ran on the Eclipse Tractus-X stack with the IDSA protocol and Gaia-X trust framework — the same standards underpinning Catena-X. The transaction proves that sovereign, governed data sharing can now travel across regions and regulatory environments without centralising data or surrendering control. Beyond secure, trusted file transfer, it points to a strategic foundation for AI-ready data and new value-creation scenarios, including controlled collaboration across ecosystems and even between competitors.

This article highlights the transition of Catena-X (CX) in North America from pilot initiatives to large-scale adoption within the automotive industry. It positions CX as a decentralized data ecosystem—an “Internet for data”—that addresses critical challenges such as quality management, sustainability compliance, and battery passport reporting. Drawing on insights from the AIAG Catena-X Conference and Supplier Onboarding Day in Detroit, the article emphasizes that digital transformation and AI initiatives are fundamentally data challenges, often hindered by fragmentation across organizations and supply chains. Catena-X provides a practical, business-oriented approach by combining trusted data-sharing infrastructure, ready-to-deploy use cases, and a scalable onboarding model for suppliers. The experiences shared by industry leaders demonstrate how CX accelerates time-to-value, enabling companies to transform fragmented data into interoperable, trusted data flows that underpin generative AI, digital twins, and future digital business models.

The world’s leading industrial trade fair opens once again its doors in Hanover from April 20 to 24. Under the theme “Industrial Transformation,” companies will showcase the latest developments in AI, automation, energy, and digitalization. This year, we will be represented at Hannover Messe by Tim Höttges, Ferri, Elke Anderl, and many other colleagues at partner booths.

T-Systems’ Connect & Integrate solution is now officially Catena-X-certified for the Traceability use case under the latest Saturn release. This certification expands T-Systems’ growing portfolio of Catena-X capabilities and reinforces its role in enabling secure, interoperable data exchange across automotive supply chains. By supporting traceability, quality processes, and collaboration through standardized dataspaces, T-Systems helps companies gain transparency across complex value chains, improve compliance, and respond faster to supply chain disruptions while maintaining full data sovereignty within the Catena-X ecosystem.

T‑Systems and IPOINT have launched an end‑to‑end solution that enables automotive manufacturers and suppliers to track product carbon footprints across global supply chains. By combining IPOINT’s sustainability software with T‑Systems’ access to the Catena‑X data ecosystem, the solution supports transparent emissions reporting in line with EU CSRD requirements and provides actionable insights for reducing environmental impact.

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.