Dr. Schweichhart, what is the aim of your data marketplace?
Dr. Schweichhart: With our Data Intelligence Hub - as the marketplace will be called - we want to offer a reliable infrastructure for data trading along the entire data value chain. And this will be based on the high data protection standards of the General Data Protection Regulation.

How will the 'Data Intelligence Hub' be structured in concrete terms?
The hub focuses on B2B relationships and offers three types of services directly from the cloud. Firstly, the marketplace as a data trading center. It is open to every provider and every consumer. Secondly, a kind of 'workshop for artificial intelligence' is directly connected to the cloud. Like a rental workshop, it is already equipped with tools and machines so that users can immediately process their own and purchased data. And thirdly, with algorithms, services and skills, a range of analytics insights is available that companies can use as a flying start for their problems.

In order to benefit from analytics - in terms of machine learning, for example - do those involved need to be willing to share their data in the community?
Yes, that's a problem because a lot of valuable industry data has not been made available to date, but has languished as an unused raw material in private clouds or internal company 'data vaults'. But the hub is the answer to precisely this problem: as marketplace operators, we don't touch the data ourselves, we don't use it, store it or analyze it. It remains private between supplier and customer. With the 'data sovereignty connector' security level, supplying companies can control exactly who is allowed to use the data and for how long.

What is your specific business model with the new data marketplace?
We are the marketplace provider that reliably ensures security, identification of participants and a regulated process within the marketplace rules. In return, we charge a usage fee to suppliers, buyers and workshop users. Our offering is aimed in particular at companies that own a lot of data and want to monetize or exchange it, as well as companies that need 'third-party' data for their business models and algorithms. In particular, we want to support SMEs in taking the step towards AI and algorithms quickly and easily. That's why we offer a complete development environment for data scientists as a service. The cross-industry approach of the hub is interesting.

The pricing structure is under development. There will also be 'freemium' packages to stroll around the market for free or try out a tool. Other usage packages go all the way up to the large enterprise package. Some cities are thinking of making their open source data available via the hub. Such an 'open source portal package' will have a monthly cost in the very low four-digit range.

On the subject of analytics: will you offer your own tools or rely on partners?
Solutions and services will be offered by Deutsche Telekom itself, but we are also relying heavily on alliances and partnerships with industry experts, particularly in the field of machine learning and artificial intelligence. The tools and solutions are provided in an integrated manner in our 'loan workshop'. With R-Studio, Jupiter and Cloudera, a whole range of tools from established providers have been integrated right from the start, plus almost 100 other libraries.

Do you already have partners who will be offering their data via the marketplace from September?
We are launching with an interesting initial data set. On the one hand, we have extensive open data sets available that can be searched for specifically. On the other hand, we will offer our own valuable data via this channel, such as data from our subsidiary Motionlogic, which specializes in the analysis of anonymized mobile phone data. Negotiations with other data providers are also going well.