On February 3, 2025, the OpenEuroLLM project officially announced its launch as an AI collaborative that brings together 20 organizations, including 11 universities, five private companies, and four High Performance Computing (HPC) centers in the EU.
Coordinated by Charles University and AMD Silo AI, the project’s main objective is to develop multilingual, foundation large language models (LLMs) for various sectors, promote European AI capabilities and competitiveness, and expand access to advanced AI technologies in the region.
The pan-European consortium of startups, labs, and supercomputing centers that make up OpenEuroLLM have joined forces to train cutting-edge AI models using Europe’s own high-powered computers. However, OpenEuroLLM is not starting from scratch, as it builds upon prior European LLM projects and existing data repositories.
From a strategic perspective, the project coordinators claim that OpenEuroLLM aligns with Europe’s goals of enhanced competitiveness and digital sovereignty, fostering open-source development within the EU’s regulatory framework, and producing models adaptable to specific industry and public sector needs while preserving linguistic and cultural diversity.
Backing from the Commission’s STEP Platform
OpenEuroLLM is also the first project to receive the Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform (STEP) seal of excellence in the Digital Europe Program. Established through a regulatory framework in February 2024, STEP leverages 11 large programs to fund what the EU considers “strategic technologies.”
According to the STEP site, to receive a seal of excellence projects must contribute to at least one of the program’s objectives, such as creating essential technologies, “safeguarding and strengthening…value chains” or addressing labor or skill shortages in the EU.
And while in the United States venture capitalists are writing billion-dollar checks to private sector AI startups, the European Commission (EC) is allocating funds to OpenEuroLLM as a “pioneering AI project” to the tune of EUR 37.4m (USD 39.4m), including EUR 20.6m (USD 21.3m) from the Digital Europe Program.
As a recognized STEP seal project, OpenEuroLLM will be showcased on the European Commission’s STEP portal and highlighted on the InvestEU Portal, boosting its visibility to potential investors for additional funding streams.