Digital Europe Programme · European Union
Open
The EU's Digital Europe Programme programme expects to make 5 awards of €3 million – €5 million each, from a total budget of €20 million. Applications close on 14 Jan 2027 (EU calls usually close at 17:00 Brussels time).
• Support the adoption of market-ready innovative AI-powered cybersecurity solutions, including solutions developed in the framework of EU-supported research and innovation projects.
• Provide and deploy up to date AI-powered tools and services to organisations (in particular SMEs) to prepare, protect and respond to cybersecurity threats.
• Integrate AI technologies into cybersecurity processes to improve the security of ICT solutions, including providing innovative approaches to training employees to use AI solutions for cybersecurity.
• Deployment of cybersecure tools and technologies relying on trustworthy AI; AI driven cybersecurity tools; Integration of tools to protect and secure AI solutions.
Objective:
To support the market uptake and dissemination of innovative AI-powered cybersecurity solutions (notably in SMEs, possibly using results stemming from Horizon Europe projects or similar) and improve knowledge and auditing of cybersecurity preparedness.
SMEs often lack the resources to assess cyber risks, develop cybersecurity strategies and implement solutions, leaving them vulnerable to cyberattacks. The resilience of organisations that fall into this category is key to the prosperity of the EU single market.
Cyber risk assessment and management can be significantly enhanced and simplified with the application of AI-based tools and solutions. However, this requires an understanding of the evolving technology landscape, of the benefits of technology integration and of deployment prioritisation. Faced with organisational and financial constraints, the SMEs may be missing the opportunity to fully harness AI-powered solutions to advance their cybersecurity and resilience.
Cybersecurity is the precondition for reliable, secure and resilient AI models and algorithms. Cybersecurity of AI is not just about protecting AI systems against threats such as poisoning and evasion attacks, as it also involves ensuring they have trustworthiness features such as human oversight and robustness – the ability to resist cyberattacks, as required by the EU’s AI Act for high-risk AI systems. The need for human oversight of AI has also been emphasised by experts. Also, the use of AI at the SME level supporting the integration of predictive algorithms can greatly support to a bottom-up approach when dealing with vulnerability detections, threat mitigation and more efficient coordinated incident response.
This action aims to increase the maturity of cyber risk management and improve the cyber resilience and ultimately foster a technologically advanced culture of cybersecurity for SMEs in the EU. Actions in this topic should develop and deploy AI-powered products, tools and services for European SMEs, also enabling the detection/discovery of attack patterns.
Proposals should cover the development or adaptation of the software/hardware and the validation of the solutions.
It foresees the automation of fundamental cybersecurity processes, in particular in small market organisations, through a SaaS toolkit tailored to the needs of SMEs. This toolkit should allow SMEs to improve the key aspects of their cybersecurity by providing user-friendly tools for risk management [1], threat detection, incident response and notification, to improve their cyber hygiene and mitigate potential threats while protecting personal data. The cyber toolkit should also provide cyber-incident prediction and response functions to improve SMEs’ resilience.
Activities should include at least one of the following:
• Uptake/adoption of AI-powered cybersecurity tools in organisations where this has not yet taken place.
• Development of user-friendly sets of tools (e.g. toolkit) based on AI to automate main cybersecurity processes in SMEs. Such a toolkit could provide automated functions such as:
• A function that supports the assessment and management of an SME’s cybersecurity risks. This function should perform a risk assessment, provide recommendations for risk mitigation, and identify options.
• An interface to existing tools that support the analysis and assessment of the extent of an SME’s cyber risk based on information gathered from digital infrastructure scanning and data provided by authorised users.
• A function that issues alerts on relevant vulnerabilities and threats based on the information collected by the risk management function.
• A function that connects SMEs to a Cyber Hub to report an incident and assist with recovery if possible.
• SME user interface for incident reporting associated with the cyber toolkit. Users can report an incident, get instructions on how to react and obtain information on how to obtain support for the response, with the use of AI assistants.
[1] Interoperable EU Risk Management Framework, ENISA, 2023, available at: https://www.enisa.europa.eu/publications/interoperable-eu-risk-management-framework
Analytics tools Artificial Intelligence & Decision support Artificial intelligence Assessment Capacity building Continuing professional training Cybersecurity Cybersecurity-aware culture (e.g. including children education) Data Security and Privacy Data protection Education and Training IT skills and competence Innovation Machine learning, statistical data processing and applications using signal processing (e.g. speech, image, video) Managerial, procedural and technical aspects of network security Privacy SME support Sme Business Development Technological innovation Training
Single-stage call. Next deadline 2027-01-14. The portal states the exact cut-off time (EU calls usually close at 17:00 Brussels time).
| Fact | Value | How we know | Taken from the source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Deadline | 14 January 2027 “Single-stage call. Next deadline 2027-01-14. The portal states the exact cut-off time (EU calls usually close at 17:00 Brussels time).” | official data field | 15 Nov 2026 |
| Amount per applicant | Unknown — not stated in the source we hold | unknown | — |
| Total budget | €20 million | official data field | 15 Nov 2026 |
| Funding rate | Unknown — not stated in the source we hold | unknown | — |
| Who can apply | Unknown — not stated in the source we hold | unknown | — |
| Where to apply | Read the topic conditions on the EU Funding & Tenders Portal for eligible countries, consortium requirements, budget and the application route. | read from the official text | 15 Nov 2026 |
Facts on this page come from the funder’s official data, taken on 14 Nov 2026. The funder's own documents, including later amendments, always take precedence.
The expected outcomes of this topic are : • Functional demonstrators of working AI chip prototypes (PCB-level) designed by EU fabless companies and physically integrated …
The expected outcomes of this topic are : • A common EU evaluation platform for AI chips and racks, with transparent KPIs, workloads and benchmark reports used for Chips …
Projects are expected to contribute to the following expected outcomes: • Advanced heterogeneous integration, particularly in 2.5D and 3D packaging and integrated photoni…
The types of deliverables are presented in two parts. The first part covers: • Enhanced cooperation, preparedness and cybersecurity resilience in the EU; preparedness sup…
• Deployment of Artificial Intelligence and various AI-powered technologies as enablers for Cyber Hubs, CSIRTs, NCSCs, NIS SPOCs and others. • Novel cybersecurity tools b…