Shared, sustainable and secure AI infrastructure through advanced digitalization

In this call for proposals we want to fund research and innovation projects that, in collaboration, contribute to cost-effective, sustainable AI infrastructures with a maximum degree of utilization. The call for proposals will contribute to increased cybersecurity, data security and resilience that strengthens Swedish industry's digital sovereignty. The projects are also expected to contribute to the development of a competitive Swedish data center industry.

The call for proposals is aimed at consortia consisting of at least two project partners, of which at least one is a Swedish company. The applicant the actors can be from industry, business, academia, research institutes, public activities or public authority. The projects should be driven by industry needs, and need owners should be involved in the projects.

The duration of the projects should be between 12 and 36 months. Each project can apply for between 2 and 15 million SEK in funding. Vinnova's funding can amount to a maximum of 50 percent of the project's eligible costs. The total preliminary budget of the call is 20 million SEK.

The call for proposals is part of the Avancerad Digitalisering program, an industry-driven programme to promote Sweden's and Swedish industry's ability to create future digital solutions. The projects funded will contribute to Sweden's shared ability to create and utilize the opportunities of digitalization.

With this call for proposals Vinnova wants to contribute to strengthened and increased cybersecurity, data security and resilience for Swedish industry's digital sovereignty. The projects are expected to lead to cost-effective and sustainable AI infrastructures with a maximum degree of utilization. The projects should have impact and dissemination capacity to provide competence-enhancing effects in the field of AI infrastructure for more than the participating parties.

Swedish industry has a growing need to handle increasing amounts of data, not least for AI training, while energy costs and eligibility requirements for sustainability are increasing.

Sweden needs to secure access to secure data infrastructure and reduce unilateral dependence on a few international dominant actors, which often results in a lack of control over data and unclear regulatory compliance.

Meeting these challenges requires even more efficient use of existing infrastructure and new innovative solutions that strengthen data security, cybersecurity, resilience and robustness. This increases the possibility of regulatory compliance and contributes to both technical and digital sovereignty.

Sweden has conditions that benefit national providers of AI infrastructure, such as access to green electricity, a climate that facilitates cooling, a high degree of digitalization, and strong Swedish industries in areas that can contribute to sustainable, innovative solutions.

Some examples of perspectives that projects can address:

• Companies of all sizes that have limited opportunities to purchase their own capacity, and where the most demanding calculations can be run in a cost-effective manner. This means an optimal balance between model optimization, computational capacity, latency and resilience.
• The industry's lack of knowledge and ability to express needs and identify use cases that drive eligibility requirements for technology development within sustainable and secure AI infrastructure.
• In an increasingly uncertain geopolitical landscape, digital sovereignty requires new thinking and less reliance on larger global actors. In parallel, cloud environments are changing, moving from global hyperscalers towards smaller, local providers.
• Existing infrastructure has unused computing power, not least in mobile networks, and even idle cycles can be an unused resource. Utilizing computing power that already exists contributes to the sustainable use of a limited resource.

The call for proposals is part of the Advanced digitalisation program, an effort from Vinnova in collaboration with industry, and mobilizes actors from different parts of society towards common objective.

Advanced digitalisation aims to strengthen Swedish research and make Sweden more attractive for research and innovation investments, and stimulate the development of advanced digital technology. The programme will be implemented with a long-term perspective and contribute to innovative, enabling technologies and the development of core competence areas that meet the needs of industry.

Read more about the program on the Avancerad Digitaliserings website.

Contribute to a sustainable system transformation

Eftersom Vinnova is tasked with promoting sustainable growth and system transformation, should your project also contribute to increased gender equality and climate change? We are based on the UN's global sustainability goals, defined in the 2030 Agenda. There we focus on two perspectives: gender equality and climate change.

This means that gender equality and climate change should be integrated into both how your project group is composed and in the intended outcome of your project.

Equal funding of innovations

An innovative force in a sustainable world

Making scientific publications and results available

This the call for proposals will also help to make results available to everyone. Therefore, all possible scientific publications should be open access. When results from research and innovation are made freely available, more people can contribute to solving societal challenges.

The call for proposals is aimed at consortia with at least two project partners that include stakeholders from industry. Partners can be Swedish companies, for example suppliers of digital infrastructure, companies with expertise in energy optimization, ventilation, cybersecurity or data/IT, as well as industrial companies with large needs for computing and storage resources. The consortium can also include universities, university colleges, research institutes and public organisations.

The projects must be driven by industrial needs, and therefore at least one company must be part of the consortium. All participating parties can be companies.

In this call for proposals industry refers to the entire production chain – from the extraction of raw materials to finished products, as well as industry-related service sectors and technology sectors that are needed for the production chain to function. This includes, for example, energy, logistics and transport, telecommunications, water/air/ventilation and recycling. The defense industry is also covered.

Each participant seeking funding must be a Swedish legal entity. In this respect, a Swedish legal entity is considered to be a foreign organisation that has a branch or establishment in Sweden. The costs in the project must be attributable to activities of the branch or establishment.

We fund research and innovation projects for optimized utilization of storage capacity, computing power and energy consumption - with particular regard to industry eligibility requirements on data security, cybersecurity, resilience and robustness.

Projects can have different inputs to meet the call's aim, such as:

• Energy-efficient solutions for power and cooling, such as smart solutions in data centers and edge environments that reduce energy use and optimize cooling.
• Smart use of unused capacity, such as methods for identifying and dynamically utilizing excess capacity in existing systems and infrastructure.
• Distributed secure computing to leverage distributed systems to enable flexible, secure, resilient and scalable computing, for example via edge and cloud.
• Confidential computations - Enable techniques such as confidential compute to protect data even during active use.
• Trading platform for excess capacity, such as market models and technical platforms for buying, selling or sharing excess capacity.

A clarification is that we refer to efficiency improvements at the macro level, not at the sensor level, for example within energy efficiency improvements and distributed computing.

What costs can we finance?

Our funding is subject to state aid rules. The rules govern what types of costs we can finance. These are called eligible costs.

In this the call for proposals, these types of costs are eligible:

• Salary costs: Gross salary paid and salary-related expenses.
• Equipment, land and buildings: Instruments, equipment and rent for premises other than the regular business premises. Please note that this refers to costs for the use of equipment and infrastructure. The call for proposals does not finance investments for the construction of new or expansion of existing digital infrastructure.
• Consulting and licensing costs: Consulting services, knowledge and patents purchased or licensed from an external party. Costs for consulting services may not exceed 20 percent of a project party's budget. We can accept a higher percentage than 20 percent in case of special needs. You must then justify the need for consulting services in proposal. This justification is taken into account in our assessment.
• Other direct costs: For example, materials, supplies and travel necessary to carry out the project.
• Indirect costs (overhead):Costs that are not incurred as a direct result of but can be related to the project, for example regular premises and cleaning. Indirect costs may constitute a maximum of 30 percent of personnel costs. Universities, university colleges and certain research organizations and government agencies have higher maximum limits depending on the type of activities.

For more detailed information about which costs we can finance, see Instructions for eligible costs

What eligibility requirements apply to costs we finance?

For a cost to be eligible, it must be:

• necessary for the activities in the project
• accounted for correctly and separately from the organisation's other costs.

An organisation may also not claim someone else's costs as its own.

For more detailed information on which eligibility requirements, limitations and exceptions apply, see Instructions for eligible costs

The state aid rules govern how much of the costs we can finance. This is determined individually for each organisation. We therefore differentiate between how much funding the project as a whole can receive, and how much each participant can receive.

How much funding can the project receive?

Vinnova's funding can amount to between 2 and 15 million SEK per project, and can amount to a maximum of 50 percent of the project's total eligible costs.

How much funding can a participant receive?

How much funding each participant can receive depends mainly on:

• party size and activities
• which activities the party will carry out in the project.

Descriptions in the following sections about what support we can provide are simplified. For full details, see funding Criteria and Levels.

Support for companies conducting research and development

The nature of the projects is primarily expected to meet the Industrial researchsupport basis. Depending on the nature of the projects regarding project activities, funding may also in some cases be granted under the Experimental Development support basis.

Industrial research can be simply described as seeking new knowledge through planned research or critical analysis to develop or significantly improve products, processes or services.

Experimental development can be simply described as combining, shaping and using existing knowledge to develop new or improved products, processes or services.

How much of the costs can we finance?

The organisation's size and type of activity determines how large a proportion of the costs we can finance, i.e. the maximum level of support.

Situations where we finance a higher proportion

If the project falls under any of these bonus bases, we can finance a higher proportion of the costs:

• Actual cooperation: Some level of cooperation between small and larger companies, between companies in two different European countries or between research organisations and companies.
• Dissemination of results: Extensive dissemination through, for example, conferences or open databases.
• Other bonus basis.

Support for non-economic activities

In this the call for proposals we [also] provide support to organisations that do not engage in economic activities. This means that the organisation does not offer a service or product on a market. This usually includes universities and university colleges, research institutes and other organisations.

We can finance up to 100 percent of such an organization's costs.

How is it determined whether an organisation is engaged in economic activities?

An organisation that offers any kind of service or product on a market is considered to be conducting economic activities and cannot be granted this form of support. It does not matter how the organisation is financed: whether it is public or private, or whether it has a profit motive. It also does not matter what legal form the business has. For example, whether it is a limited liability company, a trading company, an economic association, a non-profit association or a foundation.

If you are unsure whether an organisation in your project is conducting economic activities, contact call manager. However, The organisation is responsible for assessing whether it is conducting economic activities.

In order for us to assess your proposal it must meet certain formal eligibility requirements. If the requirements are not met, we will reject proposal immediately.

Eligibility requirements for project parties

• All project partners must be legal entities. Natural persons or individual companies cannot participate.
• The coordinating party must be a Swedish legal entity and conduct activities in Sweden.
• At least 2 project partners must participate in the project. This includes the coordinating party.
• At least 1 of the project partners must be a Swedish company.

Eligibility requirements for the project

• The project manager must be employed by the coordinating party in the project.
• The project may not begin before proposal is submitted.

Eligibility requirements on proposal

• Proposal must be written in Swedish or English.
• Proposal must follow the instructions given in section 9.
• Proposal must contain all requested attachments.

Applications that meet our eligibility requirements will proceed to assessment. In the assessment, we look at how much potential your idea has, how realistic it is and who will implement the project.

What do we assess?

When assessing applications, we look at three main criteria:

• Potential: We analyze what effects and what value we can expect from the project.
• Actors: We assess the participants' competence and ability to implement the project and achieve the desired results and effects.
• Feasibility: We assess how realistic and credible the project plan is, both for implementing the project and for achieving desired results.

Eftersom Vinnova is tasked with contributing to increased gender equality and climate change, and we always follow up and assess these perspectives.

Potential

• The project's potential to develop solutions, knowledge and expertise that produce real effects in line with the call's aim and the program's objective.
• The project's feasibility and scalability and thus potential impact and impact on Swedish industry.
• The project's potential to contribute to climate change.

Actors

• The project partners' competence, credibility and ability to implement the project.
• The consortium's anchoring in Swedish industry
• The ability of the project partners to disseminate, utilize, commercialize and further develop the results and knowledge generated in the project, both within their own the organisations and outside the consortium.
• How well the financial contribution, participation, power and influence are distributed in an equal manner in the project team.
• How well the need for consulting services is justified. This only applies if a project party's budget contains more than 20 percent consulting costs.

Feasibility

• The realism of the project plan in relation to set objective, methods, activities and budget.
• The participation and relevance of the specified project partners in the project's various work packages and activities.
• How well the project design contributes to the utilization and dissemination of the results in Swedish industry, both within the organisations itself and outside the consortium.
• How well risks are described and managed in the project's implementation.

How do we assess?

Once we receive the applications, we review them. We screen out any applications that are incomplete or do not meet our eligibility requirements.

Applications that are correct and complete are distributed among different appointed evaluator and assessed in competition with each other. The evaluators are appointed by us based on their expertise in the field. Each proposal is assessed by at least three evaluator.

Once the evaluators have reviewed the applications, we will have an assessment meeting where the evaluators will recommend which applications should be granted. We will also call for an interview if necessary before making a decision.

How does it affect an organization's financial status?

Before deciding on funding we also conduct a comprehensive assessment of the organizational and financial status of those receiving funding. We use information we obtain from credit reports, currently from Dun & Bradstreet.

In order for us to grant funding the following applies:

• Organisations seeking funding for personnel costs must be registered as employers with the Swedish Tax Agency.
• Organisations must not be insolvent, or undergoing liquidation or corporate restructuring. They must also not have any significant unpaid debts with the Swedish Enforcement Authority.
• Organisations may not cover project costs in this the call for proposals with public funding or own funds intended for other project.
• Limited liability companies must not have used up half or more of their share capital.
• If requested, SMEs must be able to demonstrate that they have the financial capacity to carry out the project according to their budget in proposal. Financial capacity refers to a registered turnover or available capital that corresponds to the company's total budgeted own funding of the project.

Once we have assessed all applications, we will send you a decision either granting or rejecting your proposal. Since applications are assessed competitively, you may be rejected even though you meet all eligibility requirements and criteria.

In the decision, we state how much of the costs we will cover for each organisation.

You cannot appeal our decision, but you are welcome to apply to us again at another time.

What happens if you are granted funding?

If we grant your proposal, you must follow our general terms and conditions for funding. The terms include, among other things:

• That you will sign a special document in which you approve your participation and commit to carrying out the project.
• That you report how things are going, your costs and achieved results to us regularly during the project period.
• If you are multiple parties, you must agree on your mutual rights and obligations in the project in an agreement. It can take time to get a project agreement in place, so it is a good idea to get this in place before the project starts.

See our general terms and conditions and get help understanding and fulfilling them

You also need to follow the special conditions that apply to this the call for proposals:

• The project shall, upon invitation from the program manager, participate in relevant events within the Advanced digitalisation program and thus contribute to the dissemination of knowledge within Swedish industry in accordance with the program's aim.
• In information about the project and in each publication of project results, it must be stated that the work was carried out with support from Vinnova within the Advanced digitalisationprogram. Publication refers to, for example, publication, regardless of medium, and oral presentations. In English, the name Vinnova is rendered as Sweden's Innovation Agency.

We may also decide to add supplementary special conditions for individual project. In such cases, they will be stated in the decision.

Could you have to pay back funding?

If you have received more money than you are entitled to or if you do not follow our term, you may be required to repay.

When the call for proposals closes, your proposal will be registered as. We will then send an email confirmation to the person responsible for the user account, as well as to the project manager and the signatory. If you have not received a confirmation within 24 hours of the call for proposals closing, please contact us.

Once the call for proposals is closed, you cannot change anything in proposal. You can only make additions if we ask you to.

Who can read your proposal?

Your proposal will be read by Vinnova employees and the evaluator participating in this the call for proposals. Everyone works under a duty of confidentiality.

Applications submitted to us become public documents. This means that we must disclose them if requested. However, we keep certain types of information confidential if disclosure could be expected to cause financial harm to the individual. This applies to information about business and operational conditions, inventions or research results.

How we handle public documents and confidentiality