Towards a decentralized data hub and query system for federated dynamic data spaces

This position paper proposes a hybrid architecture for secure and efficient data sharing and processing across dynamic data spaces. On the one hand, current centralized approaches are plagued by issues such as lack of privacy and control for users, high costs, and bad performance, making these approaches unsuitable for the decentralized data spaces prevalent in Europe and various industries (decentralized on the conceptual and physical levels while centralized in the underlying implementation). On the other hand, decentralized systems face challenges with limited knowledge of/control over the global system, fair resource utilization, and data provenance. Our proposed Semantic Data Ledger (SDL) approach combines the advantages of both architectures to overcome their limitations. SDL allows users to choose the best combination of centralized and decentralized features, providing a decentralized infrastructure for the publication of structured data with machine-readable semantics. It supports expressive structured queries, secure data sharing, and payment mechanisms based on an underlying autonomous ledger, enabling the implementation of economic models and fair-use strategies.