Germany’s SPRIND and the Netherlands’ NADI Launch €40 Million Challenge to Accelerate European AI Chip Design

Germany’s Federal Agency for Breakthrough Innovation (SPRIND) and the Netherlands’ National Agency for Disruptive Innovation (NADI) have launched a €40 million joint challenge to accelerate the development of AI chips and strengthen Europe’s semiconductor capabilities. The AI-Native Chip Design Challenge is the first joint funding programme between the two agencies and will run for 20 months.

The programme aims to use artificial intelligence to dramatically shorten chip-design cycles, with the agencies targeting a shift from processes that can take years toward development timelines measured in weeks. The challenge will focus on production-ready chip designs for AI training and inference, with an emphasis on improving energy efficiency, scalability and inference costs.

SPRIND’s Head of Challenges Jano Costard said the programme represents an opportunity to combine European collaboration with breakthrough innovation. NADI co-founder Jelle Prins said the challenge is strategically important for both the Netherlands and Europe, while also giving the newly established Dutch agency an opportunity to work alongside SPRIND and build on its experience.

The challenge will be divided into two stages. During the first stage, running from November 2026 to July 2027, seven teams will receive €2.6 million each. A second stage will then run for another year, with three teams receiving €7 million each. Participating teams will also receive technical and commercial coaching to help move their chip designs toward market readiness. Further details on the Stage 1 application process and financing are expected to follow.

The initiative is built around the growing use of AI in semiconductor design. AI models are increasingly capable of making technical conclusions, while reinforcement-learning systems and AI agents can tackle complex optimisation problems. SPRIND and NADI aim to explore whether these technologies can eventually automate significant portions of the chip-design process.

The partnership brings together complementary European strengths. The Netherlands has a major semiconductor ecosystem centred around companies such as ASML, while Germany has a broad research, engineering and industrial manufacturing base. The Dutch semiconductor sector is valued at €33.6 billion, according to the programme announcement.

The challenge also comes against a backdrop of European efforts to reduce dependence on semiconductor technologies developed outside the region. Advanced chip design remains one of the most technically demanding parts of the AI supply chain, while demand for specialised processors continues to grow alongside AI adoption.

With €40 million committed over 20 months, SPRIND and NADI are effectively testing whether AI can become a practical tool for designing the next generation of AI hardware faster and more efficiently. The results of the selected teams will determine how far that approach can translate from research and optimisation into production-ready chips.