The European Union's Chips Joint Undertaking (Chips JU) has published two calls for complementary projects to support the development and deployment of AI hardware across the continent. The combined budget stands at €80 million ($91m).

The calls target AI compute organizations: AI chip design companies, system developers, AI data centers, public AI/HPC infrastructure operators, and cloud service providers. In a statement, the Chips JU described the calls as "operationally linked," with one focused on AI chip demonstrators for EU compute infrastructure and the other targeting AI compute evaluation and procurement for EU infrastructure.

The deadline for both calls is October 27, 2026.

€10M for AI chip demonstrators

The first call seeks projects that bring advanced European AI chip designs to the demonstrator stage. It carries a budget of €10m ($11m). The Chips JU estimates that the EU will contribute up to €1m ($1.1m) per project, although proposals may request a different amount.

Consortia face concrete eligibility requirements. Each proposal must include at least one EU-established AI chip design company, and that company must be responsible for the AI chip design and the associated IP. Applicants must also demonstrate that the AI chip has been taped out at a commercial foundry, with engineering samples available or expected within the specified timeframe.

The conditions effectively restrict the call to designs that have already moved past the concept stage. A tape-out at a commercial foundry and a credible path to engineering samples are prerequisites, not deliverables.

€70M for evaluation infrastructure and pilot racks

The second call carries the larger share of the funding: €70m ($79m). It aims to establish the common evaluation infrastructure and services needed to validate technology from the chip demonstrator projects against workloads and benchmarks. Beyond evaluation, the project will also procure pilot AI compute racks.

The consortium composition rules differ accordingly. Proposals should include at least one contracting authority or entity operating an EU AI data center, or a comparable EU public AI/HPC facility, plus at least two EU-established cloud service providers. The project is expected to run for 42 months.

The pairing of the two calls points to a pipeline logic: demonstrator projects generate European AI chip candidates, while the evaluation and procurement call builds the infrastructure to test those chips against real workloads and put them into pilot deployments.

Context: the EU Chips Act

Both calls sit under the framework of the EU Chips Act, approved in April 2023 with a total value of €43 billion ($49bn). The Act set a target of doubling the EU's global market share in semiconductors from 10 percent to at least 20 percent by 2030.

Originally conceived to focus only on high-end chips, the legislation has since expanded in scope to include older chips and research and design facilities.

For eligible organizations, the October 27, 2026 deadline leaves a substantial preparation window. Chip design companies without a commercial tape-out will need to partner with those that have one, while cloud service providers and public AI/HPC operators hold mandatory roles in the larger procurement call.