Germany’s SPRIND and the Netherlands’ NADI will jointly fund an AI-assisted chip-design initiative to accelerate Europe’s chip design cycle and reduce dependence on U.S. expertise.

The program aims for orders-of-magnitude faster design timelines, moving well beyond current multi-year processes.

A total of €40 million will be invested over 20 months to support multi-team efforts focused on training and inference AI workloads for faster, more efficient chips.

Clear criteria will guide progress, including workload definitions, defined comparisons, software and manufacturing plans, and potential customer interest to validate prototypes.

Officials caution that the effort is not a finished product and success depends on delivering verifiably better and manufacturable chips.

The 20-month evaluation will stress energy efficiency and performance gains, with the potential to standardize AI-assisted design workflows if results are compelling.

Jano Costard of SPRIND says the aim goes beyond incremental gains and seeks a strategic lead in AI-driven chip design.

SPRIND employs a staged challenge model, offering coaching and collaboration as teams advance through milestones toward practical outcomes.

Stage 1 will select seven teams, each receiving €2.6 million, with Stage 2 identifying three finalists to receive €7 million each plus coaching to bring concepts to market.

Program logistics: applications run through late November, with initial awards followed by an eight-month review that unlocks the larger funding and support for the top three teams.

Selected teams will work to develop faster design processes, moving toward three finalists who will gain substantial funding and guidance.

The two-stage effort concentrates on model training and inference workloads to push designers toward lower energy use while boosting performance.