While European HPC user and developer communities are world leaders in the use and development of HPC application across several domains, major advances in HPC hardware, system architecture and complex use cases, including data and AI driven applications, are still underway. To address these emerging challenges and opportunities, the call HORIZON-JU-EUROHPC-2026-COE-LH-01 aims to support the creation of Centres of Excellence, as well as the development of high impact and competitive advanced software tools designed to run efficiently on Europe’s most powerful supercomputers.
This initiative aims to tackle complex scientific, industrial, and societal challenges in fields such as climate modelling, health research, energy, and AI.
The call also supports collaboration, training, and innovation across European research and industry. By investing in the development of scalable high-performance computing applications, this call will contribute to Europe’s digital autonomy, boosting European leadership and competitiveness and establishing an effective innovation HPC value chain in Europe.
The new CoEs and Lighthouse Codes resulting from this call will work in close collaboration with other initiatives such as the AI Factories, the EuroHPC Training Academy, and national HPC competence centres for HPC.
The call covers three targeted topics:
Community Centres of Excellence (HORIZON-JU-EUROHPC-2026-COE-LH-01-01)
By establishing community Centres of Excellence (CoE), this topic aims to advance the use of highly scalable and optimised application codes for exascale and post-exascale supercomputers, with a strong focus on AI integration. Driven by user needs and addressing the evolving needs of scientific, industrial, and societal user communities, the initiative will support impactful applications that drive research and innovation.
In addition to technical development, the call focuses on training, capacity building, and collaboration to maximise impact and ensure that European user communities are fully enabled to harness the power of HPC and AI. As multidisciplinary and inclusive initiative, Community CoEs will also address the needs of communities in EU widening countries and countries currently developing and advancing their HPC infrastructure and ecosystem.
Transversal Centres of Excellence (HORIZON-JU-EUROHPC-2026-COE-LH-01-02)
This topic aims to establish Transversal Centres of Excellence (CoEs) that will serve as specialised technical hubs supporting HPC application developers across Europe.
These centres will provide expertise, support services and guidance in key technical areas, promote interoperability, best practices in software development and coordinate knowledge transfer.
By fostering collaboration and offering targeted training, the initiative will help build the skills needed to enable the development of next generation of HPC applications and ensure long-term impact across scientific and industrial domains.
Lighthouse Codes for HPC Applications (HORIZON-JU-EUROHPC-2026-COE-LH-01-03)
Lighthouse Codes will play a crucial role in advancing globally competitive HPC application software and reinforcing Europe’s leadership in HPC applications.
This topic aims to establish world leading HPC application software by supporting HPC experts, researchers, industrial developer teams in their efforts to implement and advance HPC Lighthouse Codes with high impact and large user communities.
Lighthouse Codes will address European strategic priorities in science and industry, and contribute to breakthrough research and innovation in scientific, industrial, and societal applications. Overall, the development of Lighthouse Codes will strengthen Europe’s technological autonomy and innovation capacity in the exascale and AI era.
More details
The call is open for submission until 20 January 2026, 17:00 (CET).
The call is funded by Horizon Europe, the European Union (EU) Funding programme for research and innovation. With a total EU budget contribution of up to EUR 60 million.
Read more details and get access to relevant documents concerning the call.
Background
The Europen High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU) is a legal and funding entity created in 2018 to enable the European Union and EuroHPC participating countries to coordinate their efforts and pool their resources with the objective of making Europe a world leader in supercomputing.
In order to equip Europe with a world-leading supercomputing infrastructure, the EuroHPC JU has already procured ten supercomputers, located across Europe. Through the EuroHPC Access Calls, European scientists and users from the public sector and industry can benefit from these EuroHPC supercomputers, which rank among the world’s most powerful.
Currently, the EuroHPC JU is also overseeing the implementation of 13 AI factories across Europe that offer free, customised support to SMEs and startups. These comprehensive open AI ecosystems centred around EuroHPC supercomputing facilities are supporting the growth of a highly competitive and innovative AI ecosystem in Europe.
The EuroHPC JU is also deploying a European Quantum Computing infrastructure, integrating diverse European quantum computing technologies with supercomputers. As part of this effort, the JU has recently procured six quantum computers, currently being deployed in Poland, Czechia, France, Germany, Italy and Spain, with additional systems coming soon to Luxembourg, and the Netherlands.
In parallel, the EuroHPC JU is investing in research and innovation projects to develop a full European supercomputing supply chain: from processors and software to applications to be run on these supercomputers and know-how to develop strong European HPC expertise.
