IPCEI AI (Artificial Intelligence) funding call

IPCEI AI (Artificial Intelligence) funding call is sponsored by Business Finland (Finnish national funding, aligned with EU initiative). This call aims to strengthen Europe's technological and industrial competitiveness in artificial intelligence and connect Finnish organizations more closely to European AI value chains.

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Strictly necessary (cannot be deselected) Strictly necessary (cannot be deselected) Consent to the use of JW Player for video streaming Consent to the use of JW Player for video streaming Consent to the use of JW Player for video streaming Technology and Innovation IPCEI Artificial Intelligence Sector-specific AI for a competitive Europe Since the beginning of 2025, several European member states, coordinated by the BMWE, have been preparing a joint project for industry-specific artificial intelligence (AI).

The common goal is to create a powerful AI ecosystem in Europe that is tailored to the AI needs of industry in particular and provides easy to use technologies. The appropriate instrument for such an application-oriented joint project is an IPCEI, an „Important Project of Common European Interest“. The IPCEI-AI briefly explained The use of AI will lead to a paradigm shift in almost every sector of industry.

Autonomous production, AI-controlled logistics, AI-driven robotics, AI-supported design or the industrial metaverse are not possible without powerful AI. However, this requires highly specialized AI models that go far beyond generative large language models (LLMs). The industry in Europe and especially in Germany controls huge amounts of data that can be used to train specialized AI models.

Europe has the potential to become a global leader if it can not only develop next-generation industrial and highly specialized AI models, but also deploy them productively and successfully.

The IPCEI Artificial Intelligence (short: IPCEI-AI) uses a systemic and holistic approach across the entire lifecycle of AI models by considering data provision, common AI base models, highly specialized sector-specific AI models, AI operations, open access as well as advanced AI applications. What do we want to achieve?

The development of a powerful next-generation AI ecosystem for Europe requires the pooling of expertise and investment from many stakeholders.

The objectives of this highly integrated project are: Creation of a sovereign next-generation AI continuum with basic components for AI training and deployment, open and competitive basic AI models, innovative techniques for inference and fine-tuning, sector-specific AI offerings and energy-efficient use of AI.

Standardized access and availability of high-quality and highly structured industrial data within the framework of European data protection and security regulations.

Development and adoption of principles such as AI-as-a-Service (AIaaS) that are tailored to the needs of AI developers and users and enable the broad deployment of AI models for specific use cases in different sectors (e.g. energy, telecommunications, defense, finance, aerospace). Development of open source solutions that could be accessible in an open environment for developers and end users.

Broad integration of AI models into sector-specific systems and applications targeting business use cases in companies and public administrations. What is the current status? The IPCEI - AI is part of the European Commission's „ AI Continent Action Plan “, which aims to make the EU a global technology leader in the field of AI .

In the Action Plan of April 9, 2025, the European Commission identifies five main fields of action in which special efforts are needed: Computing infrastructure, high-quality data, AI algorithms, AI talent development and AI regulation. Also, the Commission will support the Member States at an early stage in the development of the IPCEI - AI .

Currently, a total of 18 Member States are constructively involved in shaping the content of the IPCEI - AI . Based on national calls for an expression of interest these Member States preselected about 150 projects that were then invited to a European matchmaking event on March 10 2026 in Berlin.

In the matchmaking process promising project ideas will then be further developed into an integrated overall project at European level, which must be approved by the European Commission.

It is also planned to combine the IPCEI - AI as part of the 8ra umbrella initiative with the IPCEI on Cloud Technologies approved in 2023 and an IPCEI on Edge Compute Infrastructure ( IPCEI -ECI), which is also in the planning stage, in a holistic approach. At the 8th Friends of Industry Conference on November 3, 2025, in Berlin, the ministers of economic affairs from 17 member states signed the Berlin Declaration .

This declaration identifies the fast and bold implementation of the IPCEI - AI as a key measure to boost productivity and competitiveness of Europe. Information on details of the program and funding procedures of the respective Member State (MS) can be obtained via the national points of contact: MS National point of contact Responsible entity BE ipcei@economie. fgov.

be Federal Public Service Economy DE 8ra@bmwe. bund. de Federal Ministry für Economic Affairs an Energy - Division IVA3 EE alice.

liblik@eis. ee Ministry of Economic Affairs and Comminications ES ipcei_SEDIA@digital. gob.

es Ministry for Digital Transformation an Civil Service - General Directorate for Artificial Intelligence FI sini. kahilaniemi@businessfinland. fi Ministry Economic Affairs and Employment of Finland FR ami-piiec-ia.

dge@finances. gouv. fr Ministry of the Economy, Finance and Industrial and Digital Sovereignty HR IPCEI@mpudt.

hr Ministry of Justice, Public Administration and Digital Transformation HU ipcei@ngm. gov.hu Ministry for National Economy, Department for Industry Relations IE IPCEI@enterprise. gov.ie Ministry of Enterprise Tourism and Employment - IPCEI team IT dgind.

div5@mise. gov.it Ministry of Enterprise and Made in Italy - Directorate General for Industrial Policies LU ipcei-ai@eco. etat.

lu Ministry of the Economy, Directorate General for Industry, New Technologies and Research LV IPCEI@em. gov.lv Ministry of Economics NL ipcei-ai@rvo. nl Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy, Directorate for the Digital Economy PL ipcei-ai@mrit.

gov.pl Ministry of Development and Technology, Department of Innovation and Industrial Policy SE kn. bk@regeringskansliet. se Government Offices of Sweden SI ipcei.

mgts@gov.si Ministry of the Economy, Tourism and Sport SK IPCEI_AI_CIC@mirri. gov.sk Ministry of Investments, Regional Development and Informatization European Industrial Policy (Dokument ist barrierefrei) Opens PDF "Berlin Declaration" in a new window. Value chain document for the IPCEI-AI (Document is not accessible) Opens PDF "Value chain document for the IPCEI-AI" in a new window.