EVENT DEBRIEF: GDC 2026, 1-3 SEP – The Global Digital Collaboration Conference (GDC) brings together governments, international organisations, standards bodies, open-source communities and industry to work on the infrastructure needed for trusted digital interaction across borders and sectors.
WHO: Pyx CEO and co-founder Zachary Zeus was there for three days of discussion spanning digital identity, trade credentials, compliance, sustainability, verifiable trade documents and trusted registries, as well as presenting at a related UNECE-UN/CEFACT session focused specifically on value-chain interoperability, governance and adoption.
We sat down with Zach after the trip to unpack what he heard, what changed, and why global interoperability is becoming the real question.
What stood out to you most at GDC this year?
The discussions were invigorating and, for me, two things really stood out.
Last year, GDC had a strong focus on digital identity and on the use of credentials for identity. This year there was a much more noticeable recognition of the value of using credentials for trade.
That came through across a number of sessions, whether the topic was trade documents, compliance, sustainability claims, trusted registers or trader identity. The broader point is that the same technologies we have been talking about in identity can solve very significant problems in global trade.
The other thing was a growing recognition that global trade needs a global interoperability approach. Different jurisdictions will make different regulatory and technical choices, but the information still needs to move between them and remain trustworthy and verifiable.
That question of how we achieve global interoperability came up again and again, and it is one UNTP is designed to answer.
There were five UN/CEFACT-related sessions across GDC. Did they feel like separate topics or parts of the same problem?
The sessions looked at trade credentials, automated compliance, UN Verifiable Trade Documents, verifiable sustainability and trusted registers.
Those can sound like different domains, but they are very much parts of the same problem.
A lot of the friction in trade comes down to one basic problem: somebody makes a claim and somebody else has to decide whether they trust it.
If you want trusted digital trade, you need to be able to verify the identity of the organisations involved. You need trusted sources behind those identities. You need verifiable documents and claims. You need those claims to be portable across systems. And you need the whole thing to work across jurisdictions.
That is why interoperability keeps coming back into the conversation.
You also spoke at a UNECE-UN/CEFACT session alongside GDC. What was the focus there?
Yes, it was a gathering of the UNECE Team of Specialists on ESG Traceability. That discussion was much more directly about what it takes to move from having a standard or technical model to actual adoption.
I joined Dr Matthias Altmann, UN/CEFACT Value Chain Traceability Lead for a panel looking at how to make access to value-chain data easier while still maintaining trust.
That means looking at implementation communities, governance, sector participation and the practical barriers that stop organisations from adopting interoperable approaches.
The technology matters, obviously, but adoption does not happen just because a specification exists. You need communities that can apply it to real problems.
UNECE’s summary of GDC said the technology is largely ready, and the next challenge is governance, interoperability and adoption at scale. Does that match your view?
Yes, very much. And one of the most encouraging things for me was the growing understanding that we actually need a global interoperability approach.
The world does not really have the luxury of building isolated digital trade systems that only work inside one jurisdiction, one industry or one platform. Global supply chains cross all of those boundaries.
The challenge now is making sure the different systems being built can understand and trust each other. We have to avoid creating a new generation of digital silos.
That is where UNTP has an important role to play.
Why is that particularly important now?
Because there is a lot of regulatory activity happening at the moment, particularly in Europe.
If you are operating in Europe, understandably your immediate focus is on complying with European legislation. That is the problem right in front of you.
But there can sometimes be an assumption that the rest of the world will simply adopt the same model. That will not happen.
The US will develop its own approaches. China will develop its own approaches. Other jurisdictions will make different policy and technical choices again.
So if you step outside the European context, the question becomes much clearer: how do all of those implementations interoperate?
There’s a broader tension here too, isn’t there, between sovereignty and openness?
Yes. Canadian PM Mark Carney put this very clearly in a recent address to the European Parliament when he said that “sovereignty and openness are now difficult to reconcile”. His point was that economic integration, supply chains and other cross-border systems can also create vulnerability.
That tension is very visible in digital trade.
Jurisdictions quite reasonably want control over their own regulation, infrastructure and data. Europe will make European choices. The US will make different choices. China will make different choices again.
The question is how do you preserve that sovereignty while still allowing trusted information to move between systems.
That is really what interoperability is about. And why the UNTP is a protocol, not a platform. You do not need everybody to implement the same system. You need those systems to be able to understand and verify each other.
So compliance with one regime is not the same thing as interoperability.
Exactly. Compliance is important, but compliance with a particular piece of legislation solves a particular regulatory requirement.
It does not necessarily solve the problem of exchanging trusted information across borders, jurisdictions and systems.
Organisations that need to operate globally, or that are thinking strategically about where this is heading, need to look beyond the immediate compliance task.
They need to ask: how will the credentials and data we are creating work elsewhere?
Where does UNTP fit into that?
Right now, the most straightforward answer to that global interoperability question is UNTP.
UNTP is not trying to make every jurisdiction use the same regulation, the same software or the same platform.
It provides a common way for trusted product and value-chain information to be expressed and verified across different systems.
That is the important distinction. The goal is not uniformity. It is interoperability.
Different industries and jurisdictions can continue to build the systems they need, while still having a way for the information carried by those systems to travel and be understood elsewhere.
What do you think organisations should be asking themselves now?
The immediate question might be: what do we need to comply with?
But the more strategic question is: what will we need to interoperate with?
If you are creating digital product passports, sustainability credentials, conformity information, trade documents or other value-chain data today, you should be thinking about where that information will need to travel tomorrow.
Global trade does not stop at the edge of a regulatory regime, a sector or a technology platform.
The opportunity now is to make sure we do not simply digitise the existing fragmentation. The protocol in UNTP and the policy guidance in Recommendation 49 are there now. We have an opportunity to build interoperability into the system.
--------------QUESTION FOR THE FORUM: -----------------------
Do you think organisations and industry communities can look beyond immediate compliance requirements to think about how their systems will interoperate globally? What will it take?