Funder: Chips Joint Undertaking
Due Dates: December 1, 2026 (Closing date)
Funding Amounts: €500,000–€1,000,000 EU contribution per project; €10 million total topic budget; 10 expected grants
Summary: Supports working AI chip demonstrators designed by EU fabless companies, integrated with system partners and validated for European compute infrastructure.
Key Information: Participation restrictions apply to protect European digital infrastructure and supply chains, including ownership-control assessment requirements.
Description
Chips Joint Undertaking funds this topic through the Digital Europe Programme as the first Stream A call in the AI chips and systems for EU compute infrastructure initiative. It supports cutting-edge European chip designers in demonstrating operational silicon hardware ready for infrastructure integration. The focus is on functional PCB-level AI chip prototypes designed by EU fabless companies and physically integrated with their system partners.
Projects are expected to validate their chip solutions on a common EU evaluation platform provided by the Topic X.B consortium, producing comparative evidence on key performance indicators. The intended outcome is a shortlist of European AI chip solutions awarded the AI Compute Excellence label and qualified to proceed to full rack development under Topic X.A2.
