Call for Applications: Post-exascale HPC

Deadline: 2 October 2025

Proposals are invited for a Coordination and Support Action that will guide and prepare European HPC for the post-exascale era of converging supercomputing, quantum computing and artificial intelligence worlds.

Scope

The action should bring together the key scientific and industrial players in Europe, ensuring strong AI engagement, and should liaise with the relevant international post-exascale efforts (e.g. the International Exascale Project (InPex)), the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking advisory bodies such as the Research and Innovation Advisory Group (RIAG) and the Infrastructure Advisory Group (INFRAG), the EuroHPC JU private partners (i.e. the European Technology Platform for High Performance Computing ETP4HPC, the Big Data Value Association (BDVA), and the European Quantum Industry Consortium (QuIC)), relevant EuroHPC main initiatives (e.g. the DARE Framework Programme Agreement on RISC-V processors, HPC Centres of Excellence, AI Factories, etc), the hosting entities of European AI Factories and future AI Gigafactories, and other relevant European projects and initiatives.
The action should analyse the research challenges of all relevant technologies in the post-exascale/AI era and produce and maintain a high-quality research roadmap with recommendations for research actions at the European level. Issues like hardware-supported mixed-precision, AI-driven HPC as a service, real-time HPC, next generation AI model training and inference, digital continuum, convergence of HPC/AI/Quantum/Cloud/Edge, should be part of the analysis.
The Commission considers that proposals with an overall duration of typically 24/36 months would allow these outcomes to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other durations. Only one proposal will be selected for funding.

Funding Information

Budget (EUR) – Year 2025: 2 500 000
Contributions: around 2500000

Expected Outcomes

The CSA action should be prepared, managed and coordinated by key stakeholders in the field. Project results are expected to contribute to the following expected outcomes:
- Delivery of a high-quality roadmap addressing the post-exascale HPC/AI research challenges for applications, algorithms, software, hardware and systems, including a strong emphasis on AI
- Contribution to the development of a competitive European converged HPC/Quantum/AI ecosystem, including AI Factories and future AI Gigafactories
- Interaction and collaboration with similar international efforts, ensuring alignment with AI-driven computing paradigms worldwide

Eligibility Criteria

Entities eligible to participate:
- Any legal entity, regardless of its place of establishment, including legal entities from nonassociated third countries or international organisations (including international European research organisations) is eligible to participate (whether it is eligible for funding or not), provided that the conditions laid down in the Horizon Europe Regulation have been met, along with any other conditions laid down in the specific call/topic.
- A ‘legal entity’ means any natural or legal person created and recognised as such under national law, EU law or international law, which has legal personality and which may, acting in its own name, exercise rights and be subject to obligations, or an entity without legal personality.
To become a beneficiary, legal entities must be eligible for funding.
To be eligible for funding, applicants must be established in one of the following countries:
- the Member States of the European Union, including their outermost regions:
  - Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden.
- the Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs) linked to the Member States:
  - Aruba (NL), Bonaire (NL), Curação (NL), French Polynesia (FR), French Southern and Antarctic Territories (FR), Greenland (DK), New Caledonia (FR), Saba (NL), Saint Barthélemy (FR), Sint Eustatius (NL), Sint Maarten (NL), St. Pierre and Miquelon (FR), Wallis and Futuna Islands (FR).
- countries associated to Horizon Europe;
  - Albania, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Faroe Islands, Georgia, Iceland, Israel, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, New Zealand, North Macedonia, Norway, Serbia, Tunisia, Türkiye, Ukraine, United Kingdom.