What is the LDT Citiverse EDIC?

LDT Citiverse EDIC stands for “European Digital Infrastructure Consortium on Local Digital Twins towards the Citiverse”. It is a new type of legal entity created by the European Commission to develop and operate common digital infrastructure for local (city) digital twins. It promotes interoperability between cities, reducing digital fragmentation, and supporting the development of open services and standards in the EU. It is an independent legal entity and currently brings together 15 Member States. It will create a shared repository of tools and services, manage common infrastructures, and strengthen Europe’s digital capacity through multinational collaboration.

Why a national activation approach?

The LDT Citiverse EDIC will operate digital infrastructure and services that can be used by cities in EU member states to develop, enhance and connect their data platforms and digital twins.

On the national level, there are existing programmes and funding opportunities, research projects, digital infrastructure such as EuroHPC supercomputers, data centres, AI factories. To make the most of this existing and upcoming infrastructure and to avoid multiplication of efforts and fragmentation, the LDT Citiverse EDIC aims to organise the participation in the EDIC into national “umbrella” ecosystems.

Purpose of the national activation session

The national activation sessions are organised jointly by the LDT Citiverse EDIC and the Living-in.EU community. These sessions are the first step towards activating a national EDIC-ecosystem of cities and stakeholders around Networked Local Digital Twins and Citiverse services.

This session, taking place on Tuesday 22 September 2026 at 13:00 CEST/14:00 EEST, is targeted towards Finnish public administrations: You can register here for the event. It will:

• Explain what the EDIC is and how the national activation approach works in practice.
• Showcase proven models for national umbrella networks and governance structures from Member States.
• Highlight ongoing national collaborations, existing hubs and networks, as well as local perspectives and use cases.
• Drive onboarding of cities into the EDIC framework.

Agenda 

• Welcome (5 min) | Jaan Saar, Operational lead, LDT Citiverse EDIC
• Introduction to the EDIC (15 min) | Jan Wester, Director, LDT Citiverse EDIC
• The national activation approach in practice (15 min) | Olli Voutilainen, Senior Specialist, Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment, and Anni Joela, Project manager, City of Tampere
• The role of the Smart Communities Network (10 min) | Markku Niemi, Director for Smart City development, Business Tampere
• LDT ecosystem in the Netherlands: governance, actors, roles (15 min) | Koos Boersma, Programe manager, Geonovum
• National projects and infrastructure in Finland (50 min)
  • Tiina Talvitie, Head of Unit Geospatial Development and Digital Twins, City of Helsinki
  • Heli Ponto, Senior Project Manager, Forum Virium Helsinki
  • Matias Ansaharju, Manager of Development and Geospatial Services, City of Tampere
• Discussion and conclusion (10 min)