Deadline Date: February 25, 2026
The FFplus initiative has launched its second open call for innovation studies, aiming to support SMEs and start-ups in enhancing their capabilities in generative AI through access to large-scale HPC resources.
The call targets innovation studies that address specific business challenges defined by the main participant SME, emphasizing the strategic use of HPC resources to advance generative AI applications and technologies. This initiative presents a unique opportunity for European SMEs and start-ups to accelerate their research and innovation in the generative AI sector, strengthen their competitive position, and explore new business models by leveraging advanced computational resources.
This call focuses on facilitating and strengthening the technological development of European SMEs in the area of generative AI, supporting SMEs and start-ups proficient in generative AI, professional software development, and data processing to enhance their innovation potential by leveraging new generative AI models such as Large Language Models (LLMs), building on existing expertise, application domain, business models, and potential for expansion. The innovation studies are expected to use large-scale European HPC resources, including pre-exascale and exascale supercomputers, to develop and customize generative AI models, including foundation and large language models.
Eligible participants include SMEs or start-ups as the main applicant, optionally supported by up to two additional organizations with clearly defined roles, with a maximum of three consortium partners per proposal. Only organizations established in EU Member States or in EEA countries and countries associated with the Digital Europe Programme are eligible to receive funding, and natural persons are not eligible. FFplus beneficiaries cannot participate in this call either as main or supporting participants. The maximum duration of innovation studies is 10 months, with funding of up to €200,000 for a single SME applicant, and up to €300,000 for a consortium with multiple partners. Supporting participants are eligible for a maximum of €150,000 under this call, with engineering and technical activities as the only funded tasks. Business consultancy, marketing, administrative, and other non-technical activities are not eligible. The funding principle requires at least 50% of the funding to be allocated to the main participant, and SMEs cannot receive funding for both FFplus business experiments and innovation studies simultaneously.
For more information, visit FFplus.
