Activating the swiyu Ecosystem: From Trust Infrastructure to Real-World Adoption
Switzerland is building an open trust infrastructure with swiyu. However, its value will only materialise if issuers, verifiers, credentials, and use cases grow in parallel. A new DIDAS position paper explains why the market cannot resolve this adoption dilemma on its own and outlines the steps needed to build a functioning ecosystem.
With swiyu, Switzerland is establishing a long-term infrastructure for electronic credentials. Its potential extends far beyond the state-issued e-ID: cantons, municipalities, educational institutions, and companies will be able to issue and verify digital credentials themselves.
Technical infrastructure alone, however, does not create a functioning ecosystem.
Issuers invest when there is demand for their credentials. Verifiers invest when a sufficient number of relevant credentials are available. At the same time, schemas, governance structures, processes, and concrete use cases first need to be developed. The DIDAS position paper describes this interdependence as an adoption dilemma.
DIDAS therefore proposes organising ecosystem development along a transparent and clearly defined sequence. Initial use cases can emerge as soon as the trust infrastructure enters production—for example, educational credentials, memberships, employee credentials, or certificates issued by cantonal and municipal authorities. Other applications additionally depend on the state e-ID, organisational identities, or international interoperability.
Three prerequisites are at the centre of this approach:
- a binding roadmap,
- targeted ecosystem activation,
- and the systematic use of shared trust infrastructure in suitable digitalisation projects.
The paper places these questions in the broader context of digital sovereignty, automation and agentic AI, foreign trade, public-sector digitalisation, and data spaces, and formulates nine concrete fields of action. Particular priority is given to a publicly available roadmap, a funded work package for ecosystem activation, and the systematic use of the orchestration function.
Technical infrastructure is the foundation. Adoption, however, will only emerge when credentials, issuers, and verifiers grow together.
