EU Frontier AI Initiative: Developing frontier AI solutions that are safe and computationally efficient within Apply AI (RIA)

Forthcoming EU call topic HORIZON-CL4-2027-04-DIGITAL-EMERGING-11 · HORIZON Research and Innovation Actions. Part of call HORIZON-CL4-2027-04: DIGITAL. Opens 2026-11-17; next deadline 2027-03-18. Topic page: https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/portal/screen/opportunities/topic-details/HORIZON-CL4-2027-04-DIGITAL-EMERGING-11

Expected Outcome: The Apply AI Strategy[1] also seeks to bolster EU capabilities and achieve excellence in AI to support the development of European frontier models. As part of the Frontier AI Initiative, which brings together Europe’s leading actors in the field, this topic will support the development of sovereign frontier AI ensuring safety by design. This topic directly contributes to the Apply AI Strategy. Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes: - Strengthened European capabilities in the development of frontier AI models. - Improved computational efficiency of frontier AI models, resulting in reduced computational costs. - Enhanced safety of advanced AI systems based on frontier AI models through the development and implementation of safe-by-design principles and/or AI agents acting as safety evaluators.

Scope: To advance developments of frontier AI models towards highest-level performance, while ensuring energy efficiency, addressing computational constraints, and strengthening safety. The approach of this topic is twofold. First, it aims to advance the AI field through the development and training of a frontier AI model. The AI model should demonstrate state-of-the-art performance, have multimodal capabilities, and be optimized for agentic AI capabilities such as tool use, reasoning, and autonomous problem-solving. Second, this topic supports research on comprehensive methods to reduce the computational demands of frontier AI models and to ensure their safety, including technical methodologies such as automated testing and interpretability. The primary drivers behind…