DIGITAL EUROPE – National Competence Centres for High Performance Computing – 2025

Objectives

• To strengthen the European HPC ecosystem by supporting existing, or establishing new, National Competence Centres (NCCs) for HPC in as many EuroHPC JU Participating States as possible
• To provide a wide range of HPC services and training to industry (particularly SMEs), academia (to a limited extent), and public administrations, facilitating tailored solutions for HPC users
• To coordinate and support the network of NCCs for HPC as a single focal point at the European level
• To maximise existing European HPC knowledge and expertise by facilitating the sharing of applications, best practices, knowledge, information, networking, and training across NCCs

Priorities

• Priority 1: To reinforce support for the National Competence Centres (NCCs) initiative to expand HPC adoption and capabilities across Europe
• Priority 2: To strengthen their network to play a vital role in broadening HPC skills, fostering adoption, and attracting new users from both public and private sectors
• Priority 3: To coordinate NCCs with complementary initiatives such as AI Factories (AIFs), AI Factory Antennas (AIFAs), Centres of Excellence (CoEs) for HPC applications, and European Digital Innovation Hubs (EDIHs) to maximise synergies and avoid duplication
• Priority 4: To support SMEs, by providing tailored tools, services, and training programmes

Among financed actions

• Local communication, training and consultation services
• Training solutions, successful services and tools available
  from the NCCs network a
• Communication platform and a single point of information for NCCs at a European level
• Marketplace for services specifically addressing SMEs
• A mechanism to coordinate and route user community requests to the most appropriate NCC

Eligibility

• Be a legal person
• Be a public or private entity
• Be established in one of the eligible countries:
• EU Member States (including overseas countries and territories)
• Non-EU states: listed EEA countries and countries associated to the Digital Europe
  Programme or countries which are in ongoing negotiations for an association agreement  and where the agreement enters into force before grant signature (Click here)
• A consortium composed of
  • at least 3 entities from 3 different eligible countries, which complies different conditions (see details on the call document) must be constituted (DIGITAL-JU-EUROHPC-2025-NCC-01-01)
  • at least 1 entities from 1 eligible countries, which complies different conditions (see details on the call document) must be constituted (DIGITAL-JU-EUROHPC-2025-NCC-01-02)

Additional information

• Initial duration of the action: 36 months
• Contact: info@eurohpc-ju.europa.eu

Useful

• Guidelines: Click here
• Other call documents: Click here
• DG website: Click here
• More information: Click here

• Total budget of the call: 22 million euros
• Budget per topic:
  • DIGITAL-JU-EUROHPC-2025-NCC-01-01: 20 million euros
  • DIGITAL-JU-EUROHPC-2025-NCC-01-02: 2 million euros
• Amount of the grant:
  • DIGITAL-JU-EUROHPC-2025-NCC-01-01: between 550.000 euros and 20 million euros
  • DIGITAL-JU-EUROHPC-2025-NCC-01-02: 2 million euros per project
• Funding rate:
  • DIGITAL-JU-EUROHPC-2025-NCC-01-01: up to 50% of the total eligible costs
  • DIGITAL-JU-EUROHPC-2025-NCC-01-02: up to 100% of the total eligible costs