Intelligent crisis management with AI: A cloud platform for federated data providers The joint project PAIRS (Privacy-Aware, Intelligent and Resilient Crisis Management) was funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action as an AI flagship project as part of the ‘Artificial Intelligence Innovation Competition’. It ran from April 2021 to November 2024 and aimed to develop a cloud-based platform that connects federated data providers with AI-supported services. The goal was to identify crisis situations at an early stage, predict their effects and derive preventive recommendations for action.
A key challenge of the PAIRS project was to ensure trustworthy and data protection-compliant data sharing, which was achieved by setting up a Green Deal Data Space based on the International Data Space reference architecture model. At the same time, exemplary AI applications were developed for the supply chain and logistics, healthcare and energy domains.
OFFIS took on the energy domain and contributed the use case for detecting crisis situations in the distribution grid. Widespread power outages can trigger serious knock-on effects in other sectors such as healthcare and industry. However, the large number of distribution grid operators makes it difficult to quickly record fault reports and create an up-to-date picture of the situation. The aim was to improve the assessment of risks to energy infrastructures and to provide data-based approaches for resilient crisis management.
To this end, OFFIS developed a CKAN-based data node that was integrated into the Green Deal Data Space via an EDC connector. This provides aggregated fault and risk information from public data sources and served as the basis for the AI-supported Outage Predictor for forecasting grid failures.
Another result was the addition of an EDC connector to the fault information tool in the open-source software openKONSEQUENZ. The implementation of this EDC connector enabled the secure transmission of fault data, allowing network operators to efficiently share information with relevant actors via data spaces such as the Green Deal Data Space.
PAIRS has demonstrated that artificial intelligence and secure data spaces can make an important contribution to the resilience of critical infrastructures. The platform developed has created an innovative, cross-domain approach to crisis management that offers both economic and social benefits.
