# Semantic Interoperability **Domain:** Information Systems / Ontology / Standards **Doc Type:** Canonical Technical Concept **Maturity:** Developed ## Definition **Semantic interoperability** is the ability of systems to exchange information while preserving sufficiently shared machine-readable meaning for the receiving system to use it correctly. It differs from syntactic interoperability. Two systems may parse the same message while assigning different identities, units, categories, time semantics or authority to its contents. ## Governing Variable Semantic interoperability governs meaning across boundaries: what an entity is, which relation holds, how a value is measured and what operational use is legitimate. ## Material and Computational Manifestation Ontologies, controlled vocabularies, identifiers, units, mappings, provenance and explicit context support semantic exchange. [[wiki/Knowledge Graph|Knowledge Graph]] structures can represent relations; [[wiki/Operational Ontology|Operational Ontology]] determines which meanings become actionable. ## Constitutional Question and Failure Modes The shared schema can erase local distinctions or transfer authority unintentionally. Meaning should travel with provenance, uncertainty, jurisdiction and use constraints rather than as a context-free value. ## Related Ontology [[wiki/Ontology|Ontology]] · [[wiki/Knowledge Graph|Knowledge Graph]] · [[wiki/Digital Twin Interoperability|Digital Twin Interoperability]] · [[wiki/Model-Space Sovereignty|Model-Space Sovereignty]]