What are the goals of the LARGE AI GRAND CHALLENGE?

The purpose of the Large AI Grand Challenge is to:

• Foster the development of large-scale AI models in Europe and 
• Substantially increase the visibility of Europe’s activity in this field. 

The competition will reward innovative startups and SMEs for devising ambitious strategies and making commitments to develop large-scale AI models that will provide a competitive edge for Europe. 

The expected outcome of the Large AI Grand Challenge is the selection of up to four proposals to create innovative foundational language models that will outperform state-of-the-art systems in a number of relevant tasks. The development of these models should necessarily involve the use of High-Performance Computing (HPC). 

Who are we looking for?

To be eligible to apply to the Large AI Grand Challenge, applicants must meet the four following criteria: 

1. Be a single legal entity  
2. Be small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), this includes startups; 
3. Have technical capacity AND experience working on large-scale AI models. Also consider that projects must focus exclusively on civil applications;
4. Be established in one of the Member States (MS) of the European Union (EU), including overseas countries and territories (OCTs).

 Note that, consortiums are NOT eligible within this Large AI Grand Challenge, as well as single legal entities that are NOT an SMEs (e.g., universities, research centres; NGOs, governmental organisations, large companies, etc.). 

SMEs can present a proposal targeting the LUMI supercomputer and an independent proposal targeting the Leonardo supercomputer. Only one proposal can be submitted by an SME to each of the specific supercomputers. However, it’s important to note that an individual SME is not eligible to receive both prizes.  

What do we have to offer?

The available budget for monetary prizes of the Large AI Grand Challenge is 1.000.000€. The money will be awarded by the panel of the Large AI Grand Challenge to up to four proposals, as follows: 

• LUMI Winner: Up to two prizes of 250,000€ and an allocation of 2 million GPU hours on the LUMI facility per project. This allocation will be used to develop the large-scale AI model described in the proposals in the 12 months following the prize awards. 
• Leonardo Winner: Up to two prizes of 250,000€ and an allocation of 2 million GPU hours on the Leonardo facility per project. This allocation will be used to develop the large-scale AI model described in the proposals in the 12 months following the prize awards. 

You will also get: 

• The chance to be a part of a network that collaborates with European Commission DG Connect – CNECT AI and Robotics and EuroHPC-JU; 
• The opportunity to make use of EuroHPC-JU facilities and target supercomputers.