Digital Europe Programme — AI & Supercomputing

Eligible applicants must be legal entities established in an EU Member State (including overseas countries and territories), an EEA country (Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein) or a country associated to the Digital Europe Programme (DIGITAL). The official list (v7.0, December 2025) names Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Türkiye and Ukraine — all limited to Specific Objectives 1, 2, 4 and 5, which covers the AI strand (SO2). Switzerland signed in November 2025, retroactive to 1 January 2025, with the same SO limits. The United Kingdom does not appear on the list at all: UK entities cannot be beneficiaries in DIGITAL, unlike in Horizon Europe.

For the two genomic-data topics, the cancer-imaging topic and both automotive topics, only entities from EU Member States, EEA countries and Switzerland are eligible — associated countries such as Ukraine or Türkiye are shut out. Crucially, eligible entities must not be directly or indirectly controlled from a non-eligible country: 'control' means decisive influence, de jure or de facto, including but not limited to >50% shareholding. A US- or UK-owned subsidiary in the EU is therefore disqualified unless the granting authority exceptionally accepts a guarantee approved by the country of establishment. The condition must already be met at the call deadline; an ownership-control declaration is filed with the proposal.

Entities assessed as high-risk suppliers of mobile-network communication equipment — and anything they own or control — are barred from participating in any capacity: beneficiary, affiliated entity, associated partner, subcontractor or in-kind contributor (Appendix 4 of the DIGITAL Work Programme 2025–2027). Entities under EU restrictive measures and Hungarian public-interest trusts under Act IX of 2021 (EU budget-conditionality regime) are likewise excluded. Natural persons cannot apply, except self-employed sole traders without separate legal personality.

Minimum consortium sizes are set per topic: 5 independent beneficiaries from 5 eligible countries for the genomic data-tools and data-storage topics; 7 from 7 countries for the multi-modal cancer-imaging topic; 3 for the autonomous-vehicle secretariat and platform topics and for GenAI in public administrations; and 4 applicants from 3 countries — including at least one research organisation and one private company per targeted sector — for virtual-worlds test beds. Only independent beneficiaries count toward the minimum, not affiliated entities. Financial support to third parties (cascade funding) is not allowed under this call.

The deployment topics run as Simple Grants or Grants for Procurement at a 50% funding rate — the consortium finances the other half itself. A financial-capacity check, based on profit-and-loss accounts, balance sheets and audit reports uploaded to the Participant Register, is run on every beneficiary except public bodies and those requesting no more than €60,000. A weak result can trigger joint and several liability, pre-financing in instalments or none at all, a bank guarantee, forced replacement of the entity — or rejection of the entire proposal.

All proposals under this call undergo an ethics review; for projects developing, testing, deploying or distributing AI systems, it specifically checks human agency and oversight, diversity and fairness, transparency and responsible social impact, while technical evaluators assess the robustness of the AI systems. Ethics conditions become binding deliverables in the grant agreement. Standard EU exclusion grounds apply on top: bankruptcy, unpaid tax or social security, grave professional misconduct, fraud, and misrepresentation during the award procedure — extending to beneficial owners and persons with decision-making power.