Why This Briefing
On 24 November 2026, Cofinity-X will roll out the Neptune release across the Catena-X data space. This release includes several breaking changes that require action from data space participants and their connector and business-application providers before go-live. This briefing outlines what is changing, who is affected, and what you should check now to avoid disruption to your data sharing.
Timeline
Date | Milestone |
26 Sep 2026 | Catena-X standards finalized for this release |
End Oct 2026 | OSP 2.0 API available |
03 Nov 2026 | Neptune 1.0 beta release |
24 Nov 2026 | Neptune 1.0 PROD release (breaking change go-live) |
At a Glance
Cofinity-X Service | Major Change | Action Needed From You |
Portal | New Onboarding Service Provider (OSP) and China (CHN) onboarding APIs | None |
BPDM | • Site mandatory • Address (BPNA) cleanup (after release, duplicates will be merged) | Recommendation: ensure at least one site is created by you; the same goes for your suppliers. Important: after the cleanup, verify your own/your suppliers’ BPNA. |
Core | The standards around the wallet usage change. | None, as the wallet provided by Cofinity-X continues to support DCP 0.8 and 1.0 through the Neptune transition, so connectors that still use DCP 0.8 keep working while you migrate. This support is a transition aid only. It does not extend the validity of Jupiter-based connectors. |
EDC (indirect) | Non-upgraded connectors will lose connectivity | Important: upgrade your own EDCs to at least EDC 0.11 by 24 November 2026; verify supplier EDC connectivity. |
Discovery Services | Connector Registration (old), Connector Discovery (old) and Discovery Finder deprecated | Recommendation: support the new DID-based EDC connector discovery (CX-0018). Cofinity-X will support old and new EDC discovery methods for the time being. Important: when searching for an EDC, check both (old/new) discovery methods. |
1. Portal
OSP 2.0 Onboarding
Streamlined tenant onboarding covering company, site, user, IdP, consent, and agreement handling, with automated validation, submission, workflow, and credentials.
The OSP 2.0 API is expected to be available ahead of the main release, from 27 October 2026.
Impact: none for existing customers.
China Onboarding
Secure registration API, scalable data model, and automated China-specific onboarding workflow.
The China Onboarding API is expected to be available ahead of the main release, from 27 October 2026.
What’s improving?
Battery passport data exchange with China is placed on a scalable, compliant footing ahead of the February 2027 legal deadline.
It will become easier to exchange data with China; interactions will be monitored.
2. Business Partner Data Management (BPDM)
Address Data Cleanup
When a legal entity’s legal address, additional address, or one of its sites share the same physical address, they will now be represented by a single BPNA instead of separate BPNA records. Different legal entities at the same address continue to have separate BPNAs.
This is a data cleanup: a number of duplicate addresses that affect some use cases will be consolidated. If your organization’s systems store or reference the affected BPNA identifiers directly, those identifiers will no longer resolve after the cleanup.
Impact: almost all customers will be impacted in a positive way.
Before the cleanup, suppliers and customers often had different BPNAs for the same address, which made use cases, such as Company Certificate Management, difficult. After the cleanup, suppliers and customers will share the same BPNA for the same location, which significantly eases Company Certificate Management. Cofinity-X will inform affected customers separately.
Latin Characters
New business partner names and addresses may only be entered with Latin characters. The transliterated form of the business partner name is mandatory to prevent duplicates. The original script variant can be added in the additional properties.
This does not impact business partners already present in the pool.
Mandatory BPNS Requirement
To comply with the Neptune version of the BPDM standards, every legal entity must provide at least one site
(BPNS). This is already mandatory for customers onboarded via the OSP and CHN onboarding APIs.
In future, this will have two additional impacts (these might land later than Neptune):
New companies onboarded via the Portal will be asked to provide the additional properties required to create the initial site for the legal entity during onboarding. This also applies to managed legal entities.
Existing participants will receive a request to create a site in the Portal to fulfill the requirements of the standards.
What’s improving?
Better support for use cases concerning business partner data, through less ambiguity in address data and better availability of sites.
3. EDC Connectors (Indirect Impact)
Highest-risk area for your suppliers
With Neptune, the data space moves fully to the current connector protocol generation (“Saturn/Neptune”, EDC version 0.11.x / 0.12.x / 0.13.x). Connectors certified for Jupiter only support the older Dataspace Protocols DSP 0.8 and DCP 0.8.
With Neptune, new connectors are no longer required to support the old Jupiter versions. Depending on your business partners, connections could therefore stop working at any time after 24 November if you do not upgrade to at least EDC version 0.11. With new connector providers coming to market, it might also be impossible to build a connection to business partners who use such offerings.
Connector certification does not guarantee full-stack compatibility: a certified business application can still be running on top of a non-upgraded connector without this being visible to customers.
Action suggested
Verify directly with your EDC provider whether they have an upgrade path (do not rely on certification status alone).
Upgrade your own EDCs to at least EDC 0.11 by 24 November 2026.
Verify supplier EDC connectivity by informing your suppliers and carrying out tests with them.
What’s improving?
New technology is being introduced into the data space that allows a broader offering of infrastructure services, e.g. the new EDC-V, which supports a multi-tenant setup.
Full alignment with the international standardized data space protocol, enabling cross-data-space interoperability going forward.
4. Deprecated Discovery Services
Deprecation of old discovery services
With Neptune, the following services are deprecated: Connector Registration (old), Connector Discovery (old), and Discovery Finder.
These services remain up and running for the time being. Deprecation does not mean immediate shutdown; any final shutdown will be communicated in advance.
Main impact: as the data space migrates to the new discovery services, fewer connectors will be discoverable via Connector Discovery over time.
Introduction of new discovery services
With Neptune, participants must expose their connector via their DID document, and consumers must resolve
connectors using the DID-based mechanism. This has been in place since Saturn and is defined in CX-0018: CX-0018 Dataspace Connectivity, section 2.6
4.1 Registration of EDCs on DID
Tractus-X EDC from version 0.12 onwards registers itself automatically in the DID document if (1) the wallet is provided by Cofinity-X or is a compatible BYOW, and (2) the technical wallet user was created after 20 May 2026. For an example, see the EDC v0.12.0 upgrade guide.
If your EDC does not provide the auto-registration feature, you can register the EDC yourself following the Tractus-X EDC documentation.
Recommended action: ensure your EDC is registered on your DID
Check that a “DataService” entry with the proper EDC link appears in your DID document.
Your DID document is available at https://portal-backend.svc.cofinity-x.com/api/administration/staticdata/did/<BPNL>/did.json, where <BPNL> is replaced by yourBPNL.
For an example, see the reference DID document.
4.2 Discovery of EDCs via DID
Tractus-X EDCs provide an API for connector discovery via DID.
EDC 0.12 provides a first alpha version of this DID-based discovery API.
EDC 0.13 provides the first production release of this DID-based discovery API.
Action suggested
Ensure your connector setup and your consumers adopt the latest DID-based discovery mechanism (CX-0018). Ask your EDC provider how they support DID-based discovery.
Important: both discovery mechanisms will keep running. When searching for an EDC, check both the old and the new method for the time being.
What’s improving?
Improved decentralized data transfer: fewer dependencies on the core service provider during connection initiation (EDC discovery moves from central to decentral).
Support for Neptune EDC
We're happy to announce that you can now verify your EDC's interoperability with Neptune EDC using a test offer hosted on Catena-X beta environment.
You can run the full consumer flow against this Neptune connector: catalog request, contract negotiation, transfer, and data retrieval. A successful run confirms that your connector's identity setup, DSP communication, and data transfer all work with Neptune EDC.
What you'll need:
DSP URL | |
DID | did:web:portal-backend.beta.cofinity-x.com:api:administration:staticdata:did:BPNL00000000PK2R |
BPN | BPNL00000000PK2R |
Environment | BETA |
offerId | 0c867d3f-f5ba-405a-a245-f3583546ff8f |
semanticId | urn:samm:io.catenax.pcf:10.0.0#Pcf |
dct:type |
Your connector needs valid Catena-X credentials and a DID resolvable through the BDRS of the beta environment.
Need assistance?
If you experience any issues or are in need of help, please reach out to our support team via Service Desk: https://servicedesk.jira.cofinity-x.com/ or email: [email protected]