Initiative overview
Announced by SPRIND at EurIPS in Copenhagen on 3 December 2025, the Next Frontier AI Initiative is a DARPA-style challenge programme designed to build at least three European Frontier AI Labs capable of developing their own foundation models and competing with US and Chinese AI leaders. Applications are open until 31 May 2026; successful teams begin in July 2026 and are funded for 24 months. Up to 10 teams receive non-dilutive funding in staged tranches totalling up to EUR 27M per team (from the EUR 125M total pool), plus compute access, infrastructure, MLOps support, legal and strategic company-building support, and structured investor/partner matching. In autumn 2028, up to 3 winning labs are selected and positioned to raise EUR 1B scale-up rounds from a pre-aligned investor and corporate partner ecosystem. The programme explicitly targets new model classes, modalities, agentic systems, and efficient training regimes — not AI application layers. An early-bird 'Funke' track was available from February 2026 for concept development ahead of the main challenge. The initiative is pan-European: non-German European teams are eligible and European partners of winning labs may access EU Current AI Foundation funding.
