EU selects Italian-led consortium to build open-source frontier AI model

The European Commission on Friday named the EUROPA consortium, led by Italian company Domyn, as the winner of its Frontier AI Grand Challenge to build a sovereign AI model.europa
The open-source model must cover all 24 official EU languages and will use EuroHPC supercomputing resources for up to one year of training.europa
The move comes as U.S. export controls on advanced AI chips and systems have heightened European concerns about dependence on non-EU technology providers.sciencebusiness

EU Commission Picks EUROPA Consortium Led by Domyn for Open Frontier AI Model

The European Commission on Friday selected the EUROPA consortium, led by Italian AI company Domyn, to build a frontier open-source artificial intelligence model covering all 24 official EU languages, marking a concrete step in Europe’s push for technological sovereignty in AI.

A Flagship AI Challenge

The selection concludes the Frontier AI Grand Challenge, launched on February 13, 2026, by the Commission together with the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking. The competition invited European AI firms to propose models with at least 400 billion parameters — a scale associated with the most advanced AI systems globally. Only one winner was to be chosen, receiving up to 2.5 percent of overall EuroHPC computing resources for one year on Europe’s exascale supercomputers.europa

The Commission said EUROPA was selected to “strengthen Europe’s capacity to develop advanced AI on its own infrastructure” and to make powerful systems accessible to businesses, researchers, and public institutions across the bloc’s linguistic diversity. The model will be openly available and designed to perform “at the forefront of global AI capabilities,” according to the official announcement.europa

Europe’s AI Independence Push

The decision arrives amid growing European anxiety about dependence on non-European AI providers. In January 2025, the Biden administration’s export controls on advanced AI chips affected 17 EU member states, raising concerns they could “derail plans to train AI models using European supercomputers,” according to Science Business. More recently, in June 2026, the Trump administration issued an export control directive suspending foreign access to Anthropic’s latest AI systems, citing national security.sciencebusiness

Separately, an internal European Commission document obtained earlier this year outlined plans for a nonprofit AI research lab driven by France, Germany, and the Commission, with 30 leading researchers already expressing interest. The EUROPA project represents the industrial complement to that academic initiative.linkedin

What Comes Next

Domyn, formerly known as iGenius, specializes in AI for regulated industries. The practical implications of the model’s “openness” will depend on future decisions about weights, training data, documentation, licensing, and safety reporting. The project will leverage European supercomputing infrastructure as part of the broader Apply AI Strategy, with the EU AI Act’s full provisions set to take effect in August 2026.europeantimes