Funding for AI projects

06/05/2023

The German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence GmbH (DFKI) supports small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) nationwide in the implementation of AI projects as part of the Green-AI Hub Mittelstand project funded by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection (BMUV), with the aim of saving resources.

In pilot projects, SMEs from all over Germany will receive free support from experts in the development of sustainable AI solutions over a period of six months. In total, up to 20 pilot applications will be implemented as part of the project by the end of 2025.

For free support, companies must meet the following requirements:

• The envisaged AI pilot project aims to design sustainable AI solutions to increase resource efficiency and material savings
• There is a willingness to make parts of the developed AI solutions publicly available as an open source solution
• Publication of the AI pilot project results as best practices
• Providing an internal project team
• SME status, according to ZIM - R&D individual projects: SMEs according to EU definition (less than 250 employees and max. 50 million euros turnover or 43 million euros bi-lance sum) and companies with less than 500 employees.
• Submission of documents to comply with the de minimis rule

An information flyer on the pilot projects can be downloaded here . Interested SMEs can apply here for a pilot project.