European Commission launches Frontier AI Grand Challenge to strengthen European leadership in Artificial Intelligence

The European Commission has launched the Frontier AI Grand Challenge, a new European competition aimed at boosting the development of frontier Artificial Intelligence (AI) models in Europe – AI Continent Action Plan. The initiative is promoted in conjunction with the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU) and is part of the European Apply AI Strategy, implemented under the European AI-BOOST project, which supports strategic initiatives in the field of advanced and high-performance AI.

This competition, which reinforces the European Union's ambition to consolidate its technological sovereignty and global competitiveness in AI, provides for the funding of a single European project capable of developing and training a large-scale generative AI model — known as frontier AI — with applications in multiple scientific, industrial, and social domains. The initiative aims to reduce European dependence on external technological solutions by promoting the development of its own capabilities and strengthening a robust, competitive European AI ecosystem aligned with the values of the European Union.

The proposed models must have at least 400 billion parameters, using efficient and modular architectures, such as Mixture-of-Experts, which combine high performance with optimization of computational resources. The selected project will have access to up to 2.5% of the total computing capacity of EuroHPC JU for one year, through the European network of supercomputers optimized for AI, and to specialized and complementary services from AI Factories. This access to computational resources guarantees technical conditions comparable to those used in the development of the most advanced AI models globally. Applications can be submitted until April 13, 2026, at 5:00 p.m. CET (4:00 p.m. in Lisbon).

EuroHPC is a joint initiative of the European Commission, of which Portugal is a member, which participates in the co-financing of resources and promotes their sharing among member states. The Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) participates in its management bodies on behalf of Portugal. In addition to supercomputing infrastructure, EuroHPC supports the creation of AI Factories and AI Factory Antennas in several Member States, promoting access to specialized resources, technical training, and support for the development of innovative solutions by startups, SMEs, and public administrations.

Recently, with the adoption of Council Regulation (EU) 2026/150, EuroHPC's mandate has been extended to include the development of AI Gigafactories — large-scale industrial infrastructures dedicated to AI — as well as the strengthening of European capabilities in quantum technologies.