📋 Tender Overview
The Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy will launch the expression of interest procedure for participation in the IPCEI (Important Project of Common European Interest) for Artificial Intelligence on Friday December 5 2025. Germany coordinates this European project and plans to contribute over one billion euros in total. Together with twelve other member states the ambitious goal is to complete the EU approval process next year. The European matchmaking is planned for March 2026.
Industrial Artificial Intelligence (AI) has the potential to fundamentally change the competitiveness of the industry. This opens up opportunities for companies of all sectors and sizes to submit highly innovative project outlines and become part of the IPCEI-AI. The member states will connect fundable projects with special value for Europe and present them as a comprehensive project to the European Commission for state aid approval.
The IPCEI-AI is a flagship measure of the Hightech Agenda Germany of the federal government. Funding is to be provided for application-oriented research and development projects in the field of industrial AI e.g. for materials research autonomous production AI-driven robotics or autonomous driving. The goal is to create a comprehensive AI ecosystem of open and interoperable technologies as well as AI models that can serve as a basis for a variety of different highly specific AI applications. This is intended to significantly reduce the development costs for industrial AI. This will make it much easier for small and medium-sized enterprises to enter advanced AI technologies. The IPCEI-AI is linked to projects like Manufacturing-X for the establishment of federated industrial data ecosystems. The IPCEI-AI is also connected to the ongoing IPCEI-Cloud and the European 8ra initiative.
The measure is subject to the availability of budgetary funds and the state aid approval by the European Commission.
The deadline for submitting project proposals is January 21 2026. More information can be found on the BMWE website.
The announcement of the expression of interest procedure can be found at the following link:
