Skip to main content
Shaping Europe’s digital future

Sectorial AI Testing and Experimentation Facilities under the Digital Europe Programme

To make the EU the place where AI excellence thrives from the lab to the market, the European Union is setting up world-class Testing and Experimentation Facilities (TEFs) for AI.

    Manufacturing, Healthcare, Agri-Food, Smart cities & communities

Together with Member States, the Commission is co-funding the TEFs to support AI developers to bring trustworthy AI to the market more efficiently, and facilitate its uptake in Europe. TEFs are specialised large-scale reference sites open to all technology providers across Europe to test and experiment at scale state-of-the art AI solutions, including both soft-and hardware products and services, e.g. robots, in real-world environments.

These large-scale reference testing and experimentation facilities will offer a combination of physical and virtual facilities, in which technology providers can get support to test their latest AI-based soft-/hardware technologies in real-world environments. This will include support for full integration, testing and experimentation of latest AI-based technologies to solve issues/improve solutions in a given application sector, including validation and demonstration.

The selected TEFs projects started on January 1st 2023. They focus on the following high-impact sectors:

  • Agri-Food: project “agrifoodTEF”
  • Healthcare: project “TEF-Health”
  • Manufacturing: project “AI-MATTERS”
  • Smart Cities & Communities: project “Citcom.AI”

Co-funding between the European Commission (through the Digital Europe Programme) and the Member States will support the TEFs for five years with budgets between EUR 40-60 million per project.

TEFs can also contribute to the implementation of the Artificial Intelligence Act by supporting regulatory sandboxes in cooperation with competent national authorities for supervised testing and experimentation.

TEFs will be an important part of building the AI ecosystem of excellence and trust to support Europe’s strategic leadership in AI.

 

 

 

 

Latest News

EVENT REPORT |
Workshops on reference testing and experimentation facilities for Artificial Intelligence in the Digital Europe Programme

In January 2020, the European Commission organised a series of workshops to further refine the concept of reference testing and experimentation facilities for artificial intelligence (TEFs) with the help of the invited experts and national delegations. In the upcoming Digital Europe Programme 2021-2022, the European Commission will launch calls to create these TEFs.

Related Content

Big Picture

Artificial intelligence in the DIGITAL Europe programme

The DIGITAL Europe programme will open up the use of artificial intelligence by businesses and public administrations.

FAQ