IPCEI Artificial Intelligence Sector-specific AI for a competitive Europe

The use of AI will lead to a paradigm shift in almost every sector of industry. Autonomous production, AI-controlled logistics, AI-driven robotics, AI-supported design or the industrial metaverse are not possible without powerful AI. However, this requires highly specialized AI models that go far beyond generative large language models (LLMs). The industry in Europe and especially in Germany controls huge amounts of data that can be used to train specialized AI models. Europe has the potential to become a global leader if it can not only develop next-generation industrial and highly specialized AI models, but also deploy them productively and successfully.

The IPCEI Artificial Intelligence (short: IPCEI-AI) uses a systemic and holistic approach across the entire lifecycle of AI models by considering data provision, common AI base models, highly specialized sector-specific AI models, AI operations, open access as well as advanced AI applications.

The development of a powerful next-generation AI ecosystem for Europe requires the pooling of expertise and investment from many stakeholders. The objectives of this highly integrated project are:

• Creation of a sovereign next-generation AI continuum with basic components for AI training and deployment, open and competitive basic AI models, innovative techniques for inference and fine-tuning, sector-specific AI offerings and energy-efficient use of AI.
• Standardized access and availability of high-quality and highly structured industrial data within the framework of European data protection and security regulations.
• Development and adoption of principles such as AI-as-a-Service (AIaaS) that are tailored to the needs of AI developers and users and enable the broad deployment of AI models for specific use cases in different sectors (e.g. energy, telecommunications, defense, finance, aerospace).
• Development of open source solutions that could be accessible in an open environment for developers and end users.
• Broad integration of AI models into sector-specific systems and applications targeting business use cases in companies and public administrations.

The IPCEI-AI is part of the European Commission's „​AI Continent Action Plan“, which aims to make the EU a global technology leader in the field of AI. In the Action Plan of April 9, 2025, the European Commission identifies five main fields of action in which special efforts are needed: Computing infrastructure, high-quality data, AI algorithms, AI talent development and AI regulation. Also, the Commission will support the Member States at an early stage in the development of the IPCEI-AI. 

Currently, a total of 18 Member States are constructively involved in shaping the content of the IPCEI-AI. Based on national calls for an expression of interest these Member States preselected about 150 projects that were then invited to a European matchmaking event on March 10 2026 in Berlin. In the matchmaking process promising project ideas will then be further developed into an integrated overall project at European level, which must be approved by the European Commission.

It is also planned to combine the IPCEI-AI as part of the ​8ra umbrella initiative with the IPCEI on Cloud Technologies approved in 2023 and an IPCEI on Edge Compute Infrastructure (IPCEI-ECI), which is also in the planning stage, in a holistic approach.

At the 8th Friends of Industry Conference on November 3, 2025, in Berlin, the ministers of economic affairs from 17 member states signed the Berlin Declaration. This declaration identifies the fast and bold implementation of the IPCEI-AI as a key measure to boost productivity and competitiveness of Europe.

Information on details of the program and funding procedures of the respective Member State (MS) can be obtained via the national points of contact: