Energy efficiency and sustainability of AI data processing in Data Centres (IA)
Horizon Europe · Grant topic
Summary
A Polish company can use this call for R&D.
Funds pilots demonstrating innovative cooling, backup power and system optimisation technologies for energy-efficient AI data centres, reaching at least TRL 8.
- Who can apply
- Companies can lead: SME, large company, startup, research org, university.
- Amount
- €39,000,000Indicative budget
- Deadline
- 18 Mar 2027 01:00 CETin 145 days
- Status
- Forthcomingopens 17 Nov 2026
Machine-classified from the call text; check eligibility at the source.
Description
Expected Outcome:
Pilots for new technologies including demonstration sites which contribute to energy-efficient and sustainable AI data processing in data centres, reinforcing EU strategic autonomy and climate goals. Project results are expected to contribute to one or more of the following outcomes:
• Demonstrated innovations that substantially improve heat removal from high-power AI chips (e.g. direct on-chip cooling, advanced thermal interface materials, multi-scale thermal management), enabling higher performance without thermal throttling. This should lead to lower cooling energy needs and higher reliability for dense AI workloads.
• Prototypes of novel backup power systems (such as graphene-enhanced batteries) that operate with minimal cooling requirements, improving data centre resilience and enabling better use of renewable power.
• New methods and frameworks that optimise the entire data centre for energy-efficient AI processing. This includes intelligent workload scheduling and AI model optimisation techniques to reduce energy use (e.g. carbon-aware job scheduling and power capping to cut energy demand and peak temperatures), as well as designs for integrating on-site/off-site renewables and waste-heat reuse.
Outcomes should demonstrate potential for improved power usage effectiveness and utilisation of waste heat in external applications, aligned with European targets for carbon-neutral heating/cooling.
Scope:
Actions should address one or more of the following development areas:
• Direct on-chip cooling and thermal management, including novel and innovative cooling techniques applied at chip and module level (direct liquid cooling, heat spreaders, thermal interface materials, and advanced packaging) and multi-scale thermal management techniques.
• Energy-efficient power backup and storage systems: Innovations in early-stage energy storage concepts (graphene-enhanced batteries, supercapacitors, and other emerging battery chemistries) and approaches for net-zero backup.
• Sustainable data centre architectures and AI workload optimization: addressing AI-driven workload scheduling, adaptive power management, dynamic resource allocation and integration of data centre heat capture and reuse.
• Materials research for energy efficiency: Projects to make use of existing research in new materials and components supporting energy efficiency and thermal management, and to employ these for data centres benefit.
• Optimisation of data centre operation and functioning: explore AI solutions to optimize the Data centre functioning, computing architecture, and virtualization, minimizing its carbon and environmental footprint.
• Integration of data centres into energy systems and the wider region: including solutions that integrate Data centres into energy system planning and operation.
In addition, actions should establish open pilot demonstration sites to test and integrate research results, and to demonstrate, benchmark, and disseminate findings among relevant industrial stakeholders, including the European data centre and colocation industry, cloud providers, and edge computing operators. These pilot sites should furthermore serve as European reference points for showcasing breakthroughs and cutting-edge technologies for energy-efficient and sustainable data centres developed under this topic, acting as models for technology uptake across the European data centre industry.
Projects funded under this topic are encouraged to build synergies and leverage their results with funded projects from Cluster 5 HORIZON-CL5-2027-05-D4-06: Thermal energy optimisation and waste heat recovery of high energy demand IT rooms in buildings or small edge data centres.
Technology Readiness Level - Technology readiness level expected from completed projects
Activities are expected to start at TRL 6-7 and achieve TRL 8 by the end of the project – see General Annex B.
Who can apply, in detail
- Applicant types
- SME, Large company, Startup, Research org, University
- Purpose
- Research and innovation
- R&D relevance
- 3 of 3
- Poland eligible
- Yes
- Country limit
- —
- Region
- Any
- Consortium
- Required
- Readiness level (TRL)
- 8+ at completion
- Topics
- Energy-efficient data centres
- AI chip cooling
- Thermal management
- Backup power innovation
- AI workload optimisation
Machine-classified from the call text; check eligibility at the source. 23 Oct 2026
Conditions
Typed facts extracted from the source documents by Scindu's grant-data review. Each value keeps its own conditions. Unknown means unstated, not zero or unlimited.
- Other condition
- Horizon Europe General Annexes describe personnel as actual costs unless declared as a unit cost; they separately list SME-owner/natural-person personnel unit costs, subcontracting as actual costs, purchases as actual costs unless unit cost, and FSTP only if provided by the specific call. Therefore these personnel categories do not turn an external service purchase or subcontract into a hire, and no specific FSTP entitlement is asserted for this topic.
- Other condition
- For A.1 employees/equivalent, the HE MGA states annual personnel costs divided by 215 as the daily-rate basis; declared day-equivalents must be identifiable and verifiable. The total declared day-equivalents per person across EU grants in a year cannot exceed 215, minus parental leave time where applicable.
- Other condition
- Expected contribution is EUR 9.00–10.00 million per project.
Indicative expected range only; different amounts may be requested; not a hard award floor or cap.
- Other condition
- Exact source identifies budget-based HORIZON-AG; General Annexes describe actual-cost grants. Eligibility/reimbursement terms depend on applicable MGA and grant agreement.
- Other condition
- Activities are expected to start at TRL 6-7.
- Technology readiness level at end, minimum
- 8
Expected end-project target TRL 8, not a hard threshold; the source explicitly says activities are expected to achieve it.
Amounts and costs
- Indicative budget
- €39,000,000
Topic budget as stated in the portal's budget table. Lump-sum and per-project limits are in the call conditions.
- Eligible cost
- Directly contracted natural persons (under a non-employment contract) and paid seconded persons may be personnel costs when assigned to the action and meeting general eligibility conditions; they must work under conditions similar to employees, results belong to the beneficiary unless agreed otherwise, and actual costs must not be significantly different from employees performing similar tasks.
- Eligible cost
- Employees/equivalent may be charged as personnel costs only if general eligibility conditions are met, the person works for the beneficiary under an employment contract or equivalent appointing act, is assigned to the action, and remuneration-linked amounts arise under national law or the employment terms; this category is based on costs actually incurred.
- Eligible cost
- The HE MGA allows nonsalaried SME owners and natural-person beneficiaries to claim personnel costs as unit costs under Annex 2a, subject to general eligibility conditions; the AGA gives a daily-rate formula of EUR 8,745.4 divided by 18 days, multiplied by the applicable country-specific correction coefficient for calls opened on or after 30 July 2024. This is a unit-cost calculation, not an employee salary cap or rate guaranteed for every country.
- Funding intensity, maximum
- 70
General rate for other beneficiaries. Topic and grant agreement control; not a staff pay rate.
- Funding intensity, maximum
- 100
Only for non-profit legal entities; not a general IA rate or staff pay rate.
- Topic allocation
- €39,000,000
Indicative topic allocation, distinct from expected EU contribution per project and staff costs.
Personnel and services
Other role
Staff cost the grant can fund
Potential fundable personnel category only when the grant conditions and Article 6.2.A.2 apply; assigned to the action, work under conditions similar to an employee, result belongs to beneficiary unless agreed otherwise, and actual direct-contract costs are not significantly different from comparable employees. It is a contractor engagement category, not employee payroll; no qualification, headcount, FTE, duration or rate is set by this topic.
Other role
Staff cost the grant can fund
Potential fundable personnel category under the applicable Horizon Europe General MGA, conditional on actual action assignment and all eligibility rules. This is not a call-specific required team, named job, or promise of award. Qualification, headcount, FTE, duration and salary are not stated by the topic. Employee remuneration must be actual and linked to national law/employment terms; daily-rate and reporting rules are described in the cited MGA.
Other role
Staff cost the grant can fund
Potential personnel unit-cost category where the applicable grant agreement includes Article 6.2.A.4. Applies only to an SME owner not receiving a salary or a natural-person beneficiary not receiving a salary, with work assigned to the action and general unit-cost conditions met. The daily unit rate is country-adjusted; it is not a salary and this packet does not assert a per-person EUR rate without the recipient country coefficient. No required headcount, FTE, duration or qualification is named in this topic.
Other role
Staff cost the grant can fund
Potential fundable personnel category only when the grant conditions and Article 6.2.A.3 apply; assigned to the action, works under conditions similar to an employee and actual costs are not significantly different from comparable beneficiary employees. This is a paid secondment, not a new employment contract with the beneficiary. No call-specific qualification, headcount, FTE, duration or pay rate is stated.
Source documents
Call facts
- Opens
- 17 Nov 2026
- Deadline model
- Single-stage
- Programme
- Horizon Europe · 2021 - 2027
- Call
- HORIZON-CL4-2027-04 · DIGITAL
- Types of action
- HORIZON Innovation Actions
- Keywords
- Cloud computing
- Edge computing
- data centre technologies
- energy efficiency
- Source
- ec.europa.eu
- Checked
- 24 Oct 2026
- Portal updated
- 19 Oct 2026
- Review status
- Partial review
- Reviewed
- 23 Oct 2026
This is a summary of the source page, not the official text. Eligibility, conditions and the submission system are at the source.