Commission welcomes design of first IPCEI in AI

The European Commission welcomes the initiative of 19 Member States to create and pre-notify under State aid rules the first Important Project of Common European Interest (IPCEI) in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI). The project aims at developing a range of decentralised and commonly accessible AI services.

IPCEI AI covers the entire AI stack and aims to develop advanced and highly innovative AI and compute management technologies and applications, industrial products and services going beyond the state of the art in the sector concerned. It will also aim to drive technological advances while contributing to European digital sovereignty, thereby positioning Europe as a leader in AI innovation and reinforcing Europe's AI value chain from technological development to adoption. This aims at contributing to the target of the EU becoming a global leader in AI, as set out in the Commission's AI Continent Action Plan, the Apply AI Strategy and the proposal for a Cloud and AI Development Act.

The IPCEI AI has been jointly designed by 19 Member States (Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden) and is coordinated by Germany. The Commission has facilitated this endeavour through the IPCEI Design Support Hub, established in April 2025, in which Commission services help Member States to prepare State aid notification for the projects to ensure compliance with the EU rules from the outset. This should allow for a quicker processing of the State aid notification.

As part of IPCEI AI, 11 Member States involved that will grant State aid to direct participants announced that they will start pre-notifying their projects to the Commission in September 2026. The Commission will then assess the compliance of the projects with the eligibility and compatibility criteria of the IPCEI Communication.

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