NESSI has published a paper on Integration and Interoperability which focuses on research opportunities and challenges in semantic interoperability.
Technical interoperability based on common data formats, protocols and APIs is necessary to allow systems to exchange information at a basic level.
Semantic interoperability provides additional benefits by ensuring that different systems share an understanding of what that information means.
NESSI makes the following recommendations:
- Intent-based management should be extended from networking to the full computing continuum
- Standards, methods and tools should be developed to support semantic interoperability within and between Data Spaces
- New methods, tools and platforms should be developed to support the systematic application of generative AI to support semantic interoperability between systems
- Particular focus should be directed to reliability, trustworthiness and explainability as systems are coupled, especially where AI systems introduce implicit metadata, uncertainty and the possibility of emergent behaviour.