PIAST AI-Optimised Supercomputer

Public procurement by the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking for the acquisition, delivery, installation, commissioning and long-term maintenance of the PIAST AI Optimised Supercomputer to be hosted at the PIAST AI Factory (PCSS) in Poland. Procedure reference EUROHPC/2026/CD/0012, competitive dialogue procedure, estimated contract value €59.5 million and maximum duration 72 months. Scope includes integrated AI-optimised compute, storage (approximately 10 PB usable including at least 1 PB NVMe), high-speed networking, direct-to-chip liquid cooling, secure power subsystem, complete software stack and operational support with strict security and EU data residency requirements. Requests to participate must be submitted electronically via the EU Funding and Tenders Portal by 10 December 2026 at 16:00 Europe/Luxembourg; this is a supply and services contract, not a grant.

What it procures

Scope summary

Competitive dialogue tender to acquire, deliver, install and maintain a world-class AI-optimised supercomputer (hardware, software stack, facility integration, power and cooling subsystems and services) to be hosted at PCSS as part of the PIAST AI Factory. The system must support large-scale AI training, inference and HPC-AI workflows and include an EU technology inference partition. 1

Who can apply

Economic operators (suppliers) or consortia able to deliver high-performance AI hardware, integrated software, installation, commissioning and long-term maintenance. Participation requires EU Login and Participant Identification Code (PIC); open to entities within the EU and to third-country operators subject to procurement access rules and restrictive-measures checks. Providers of designated 'European accelerator' technology must complete ownership-control declarations; high-risk telecom suppliers are excluded.

Key dates

Eligibility & assessment highlights

Detailed procurement documents, templates and Q&A are published on the EU Funding & Tenders Portal where submissions and questions must be made; selected candidates will enter the competitive dialogue and only invited tenderers may submit final offers. 1

Footnotes

1. 1Opportunity and full tender package available on the EU Funding & Tenders Portal PIAST AI-Optimised Supercomputer.

Key technical requirements and scope

The tender requires delivery of an integrated AI-optimised supercomputing facility comprising compute, storage, interconnect, orchestration and monitoring layers plus a secure power delivery subsystem and integrated cooling. The system is described as two integrated domains (Domain 1: AI supercomputer including racks, nodes, interconnect, storage, orchestration and monitoring; Domain 2: secure power delivery including UPS and switchgear). The solution must include direct-to-chip liquid cooling capturing at least 80% of system heat, support high rack power density (80–120 kW/rack typical), a hybrid tiered storage system (10 PB usable with at least 1 PB NVMe), high-speed interconnect for distributed AI (min. 400 Gbps per GPU/node with latency <1.5 μs), and three compute partitions including an AI accelerator partition (primary), CPU partition, and a European AI inference partition using European accelerator technology (20–30 accelerators).

Who should apply and eligible applicant types

This is a public procurement to supply, install and operate a specialised AI supercomputer. Eligible economic operators include single suppliers or consortia able to meet exclusion and selection criteria. Typical eligible applicant types are: large enterprises (system integrators, HPC vendors), specialised HPC/AI hardware vendors, multinational consortia (joint tenders), research infrastructure integrators, universities partnering with industrial suppliers, and specialist subcontractors for power/cooling/integration. SMEs may participate as consortium members or subcontractors but the procurement itself is not SME-targeted (smeSuitableIndicator: false). Individual natural persons are not appropriate as lead suppliers; partnerships and public-private groupings are allowed.

Funding type and nature of the opportunity

Consortium requirement and application type

Target sectors and use-cases

Project maturity and expected project stage

Funding amount and contract value

Application process, stages and timeline

Submission is electronic via the EU Funding & Tenders Portal eSubmission system (EU Login required). The competitive dialogue comprises three main stages: Selection Stage (Request to Participate), Dialogue Stage (Invitation to Dialogue and interactive bilateral dialogue sessions, site visits, iterative technical refinement), Tendering Stage (Final Tender submission, evaluation and award). Key published dates in the descriptive document: Contract Notice publication 26 October 2026; deadline for requests for additional information 26 November 2026; deadline for Requests to Participate 10 December 2026 16:00 Europe/Luxembourg; notification of selection results (indicative) 15 February 2027; Invitation to Dialogue dispatch 16 February 2027; plenary briefing 1 March 2027; dialogue sessions March–May 2027; dispatch of final Invitation to Tender 14 June 2027; Final Tender deadline 20 July 2027; evaluation complete and award decision September 2027; expected contract signature 1 October 2027; installation start Q4 2027 and operational start of main partition Q2 2028. Timetable is indicative and may be updated by the contracting authority.

Selection, award criteria and evaluation

Selection (prequalification) checks include administrative compliance, exclusion criteria, economic and financial capacity (minimum consolidated annual turnover in last two years above €21 million), technical and professional capacity (IPARFs, operational support centre in EU/EFTA, staffing and qualifications, certifications), and a technical system design proposal. Up to three highest scoring candidates at selection stage will be invited to the Dialogue Stage.

Final award will use the best price-quality ratio with award criteria outlined in the tender specifications: Criterion 1 Technical value of system design (functional and performance fit), Criterion 2 Cost-performance analysis (performance evaluation and total cost of ownership), Criterion 3 Quality of services (support, maintenance, training, SLAs), Criterion 4 EU added value (inclusion of EU technologies, supplier engagement and strategic benefits). Detailed weighting and scoring rules are provided in the tender documents and will be finalised in the Dialogue/Tendering Stage.

Documentation and templates (what to submit)

Eligible applicant types (detailed)

Eligible applicant types and roles for participation and how they typically apply:

Co-funding, pricing and commercial conditions

The procurement is funded by EuroHPC JU budget and Member State contributions according to the EuroHPC Regulation. There is no requirement for applicant financial co-funding of the procured assets: bidders supply priced offers to EuroHPC JU. The EuroHPC JU Regulation foresees Union contribution covering up to 50% of acquisition costs and up to 50% of operating costs of AI-optimised supercomputers, but the procurement contract is between EuroHPC JU and the supplier; bidders must provide firm all-inclusive prices in euros (no decimals) free of VAT. Conditional offers are not permitted. Tenderers must include total cost of ownership inputs for evaluation. Financial guarantees required from the successful bidder: performance guarantee (10% of contract) and pre-financing guarantee if pre-financing is requested by bidder (pre-financing can be up to 30%).

Nature of support to beneficiaries

Beneficiaries in the sense of the infrastructure users (start-ups, researchers, public institutions, industry) will receive access to the delivered AI supercomputing services (compute, storage, software stacks, secure processing environments). They do not receive direct monetary payments from this procurement; support is delivered as infrastructure and services made available by the EuroHPC JU and the hosting entity.

Application stages and likely number of stages

Success rates and competition

The contracting authority intends to shortlist up to three candidates from the Selection Stage for the Dialogue. No public success rate is provided; as a competitive procurement for a single supplier with a high technical bar and substantial contract value, success rates for individual applicants are typically low and depend on how many competitive, compliant offers are received and pass selection criteria. Applicants should assume a strict technical and financial evaluation and strong competition from major HPC/AI systems integrators.

Co-funding requirement

Direct co-funding by applicants is not required. All pricing must be provided in the tender. The EuroHPC JU finances acquisition/operation according to Regulation provisions; bidders supply bids and may request pre-financing subject to providing pre-financing guarantee. If bidders plan co-investment or public-private financing models these must be clearly documented and compliant with procurement rules; any third-party funding arrangements should be declared and evidenced.

Application templates and structure of forms

The procurement package includes detailed annexes and templates that must be used. Key templates and their structure include:

Security, procurement restrictions and EU-specific provisions

All bidders must accept the EU Financial Regulation procurement rules and Article 12a of the EuroHPC JU Regulation, and deliver documentation to enable verification of exclusion, selection, and restrictive measures compliance. The contract will be governed by EU law and supplemented by Luxembourg law where necessary; disputes follow the procurement notice guidance. Candidates may be entered into EDES for exclusion checks if required.

Mentioned countries and geographic details

Summary of technical deliverables (concise checklist)

How this opportunity functions — general explanatory summary

This is a large, technical competitive procurement to acquire a complete AI-optimised supercomputing facility (hardware, software, installation, warranty and maintenance) that will be owned by EuroHPC JU and hosted at PCSS within the PIAST AI Factory. Suppliers bid to design, deliver, integrate and operate (under contract) a production-ready AI supercomputer that meets demanding performance, security, sovereignty and energy-efficiency criteria. The procurement uses a competitive dialogue because of technical complexity: after prequalification (Requests to Participate) up to three candidates enter into dialogue to refine technical solutions and contractual terms, after which final tenders are requested and evaluated using price-quality criteria. Successful bidders must meet strict exclusion and selection criteria (financial health, prior experience deploying similar systems, technical competence and staff qualifications) and provide comprehensive documentation using mandatory annex templates. The award results in a supply-and-services contract (up to €59.5 million) with performance guarantees, warranty and phased delivery schedule including integration, validation and operational readiness.

Footnotes

1. 1All procurement documentation, annexes, the descriptive document, invitation to submit a request to participate, and downloadable annex files are available on the EU Funding & Tenders Portal tender page and in the TED notice referenced in the tender data. Use the portal link to subscribe for updates, download Annex 9A (IPARF), Annex 10D questionnaire and the declaration on honour templates.

Opportunity classification

This is a public procurement opportunity and not a grant scheme. The European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking is seeking one economic operator to acquire, deliver, assemble, install, commission, maintain and support the PIAST AI optimised supercomputer for the PIAST AI Factory in Poland. Applicants will compete for a commercial supply and services contract rather than apply for non repayable project funding.1

The system is intended to strengthen Poland’s artificial intelligence ecosystem by providing secure, sovereign and high performance AI infrastructure and associated services to start ups, scale ups, SMEs, large enterprises, public institutions, researchers and educational organisations. Target application areas include healthcare, industry, agriculture, transport and public administration.

Key opportunity data

The portal metadata includes an additional date of 1 January 2026, but the detailed procurement notice and submission information identify 10 December 2026 at 16:00 Europe/Luxembourg as the deadline for requests to participate. Applicants should treat the deadline displayed in the live procurement portal and the final procurement documents as controlling.1

What is being procured

The contracting authority intends to acquire one integrated AI supercomputing facility owned by the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking and hosted by the PIAST AI Factory led by Poznańskie Centrum Superkomputerowo Sieciowe, affiliated with the Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

The successful contractor will be responsible for the complete lifecycle of the system, including hardware procurement, delivery, assembly, installation, software deployment, commissioning, acceptance testing, training, hardware maintenance, software maintenance, technical support, monitoring and service level performance.

The solution must support the full AI lifecycle, from data collection and preprocessing through model training, fine tuning, inference, application delivery, serving and monitoring. It must support both traditional high performance computing workloads and cloud native AI workloads.

The infrastructure is divided into two integrated domains. The first covers the AI supercomputer, including compute, storage, networking, software, cooling components and rack level power distribution. The second covers secure power delivery, including uninterruptible power supply equipment, switchgear, bypass systems, cooling and monitoring. The supplier must deliver and integrate both domains as one coherent facility.

Core technical expectations

The published descriptive document sets out a demanding technical baseline. The final technical specifications may be refined through the dialogue stage, and candidates should distinguish between mandatory requirements and target capabilities that may improve the evaluation score without necessarily being mandatory.2

Who can apply

The opportunity is open to economic operators that have the legal, financial and technical capacity to deliver and maintain a complex AI supercomputer. A candidate may apply as a sole economic operator or as a joint request to participate submitted by a consortium.

The procurement documents allow the use of subcontractors and entities whose capacity is relied upon for technical or professional selection criteria, subject to the applicable access, eligibility, evidence and disclosure requirements. Each consortium member and relevant subcontractor should be assessed carefully because exclusion, restrictive measures and access to procurement rules can apply across the delivery chain.

Participation is generally open to natural and legal persons within the scope of the EU Treaties, international organisations and entities established in third countries where an applicable special agreement with the European Union provides access to procurement. The WTO Government Procurement Agreement is stated not to apply to this procurement.2

Entities involved in the tender, including subcontractors and entities providing relied upon capacity, must not be subject to applicable EU restrictive measures involving asset freezes or prohibitions on making funds or economic resources available. Additional restrictions may apply to high risk suppliers and to suppliers of certain strategic technologies.

The tender must include EU technologies and components. The next generation European AI partition is subject to ownership control assessment for the relevant European chip and accelerator providers. Applicants should map ownership, control, supply chain, technology origin and potential third country restrictions for all critical components before forming their consortium or supplier structure.

Selection and prequalification requirements

The first stage is a request to participate. The contracting authority will assess exclusion criteria, administrative compliance, economic and financial capacity, technical and professional capacity, access to procurement, restrictive measures and conflicts of interest. Only candidates that pass the selection stage will be invited to the competitive dialogue.

The principal evidence and documents identified in the questionnaire and descriptive document include:

The three Installation Project Activity Reference Forms must describe comparable projects completed during the four years preceding submission. Each reference should state the amount, date, location, recipient and relevant technical characteristics, and should explain how the project demonstrates capacity to deliver a supercomputer in a similar environment. Evidence may be provided through recipient certificates or an operator declaration, subject to the procurement requirements.

The candidate must demonstrate access to suitably experienced personnel. The questionnaire identifies distinct roles for a systems architect, systems engineer, data centre infrastructure specialist, application or benchmarking specialist and project manager, with at least three years of experience in the relevant role and coverage by different individuals.

Economic and financial conditions

The procurement is a large scale capital equipment and services contract. Applicants should expect scrutiny of their ability to finance procurement, installation, commissioning, maintenance and support obligations. The selection questionnaire requests audited profit and loss accounts for the last two closed financial years, with the most recent year closed within the previous 18 months.

The successful contractor must provide a performance guarantee equal to 10 percent of the contract value. On the estimated contract value, this would correspond to approximately €5.95 million, although the final amount will depend on the signed contract value and its contractual terms.

Pre financing may be available up to 30 percent of the contract price if requested and if the contractor supplies a pre financing guarantee covering the full pre financed amount. The contract may be performed without pre financing if the required guarantee is not provided.

This procurement does not specify a grant funding rate, eligible cost categories, co financing percentage for applicants or maximum grant per beneficiary. The €59.5 million figure is the estimated overall contract value available for the procurement and should not be interpreted as an award amount that each applicant may claim.

Procedure and evaluation

The competitive dialogue is designed for a technically complex procurement where the contracting authority cannot define the final solution in sufficient detail before discussions with selected candidates. The process has three principal stages:

The final award is based on the best price quality ratio. The published document identifies technical value of the system design, cost performance analysis based on performance and total cost of ownership, quality of services and European Union added value as principal evaluation themes. Mandatory requirements must be met, while target capabilities can improve the comparative score.

The final tender must be prepared independently and autonomously from other tenders. Candidates must disclose conflicts of interest and must immediately inform the contracting authority of changes to the circumstances declared in the request to participate.

Contract duration, delivery and implementation

The maximum contract duration is 72 months. The system is intended to serve users during the 2027 to 2032 period, with the earliest target delivery date in 2027. The contract covers acquisition, delivery, installation, maintenance, support and training rather than only the purchase of hardware.

The supplier will be responsible for complete installation, internal cabling, commissioning, integration with existing cooling and electrical infrastructure, acceptance testing and operational readiness. Delays or failure to meet service level requirements may result in liquidated damages, contractual penalties or other remedies under the final contract.

Applicants should plan for a long term service operation model, including spare parts, firmware and software lifecycle management, security updates, performance monitoring, failure prediction, maintenance windows, incident response and continued compatibility with evolving AI frameworks and accelerator technologies.

Submission requirements

Requests to participate must be submitted electronically and exclusively through the submission address provided in the procurement portal. An EU Login account is required. The organisation must have a valid Participant Identification Code for submission as a sole candidate or consortium member.

The submission should be prepared in English because the procurement contract and formal contract implementation communications will be in English. The request to participate must use the formats and templates supplied with the procurement documents, including the declaration on honour and the questionnaire. A qualified electronic signature is recommended for the declaration where available, although the published template also describes a handwritten signature process.

Applicants should upload documents early. The portal guidance states that individual attachments must be below 50 MB and that a maximum of 200 files may be uploaded per submission. File naming, file type, browser and technical requirements should be checked against the current eSubmission system requirements before final submission.

The procurement documents may be amended before the deadline. Candidates should monitor the portal, subscribe to the procedure and check all document versions and published questions and answers. At the time of the available notice data, no substantive public questions and answers were listed for this procedure.

Applicant assessment

This opportunity is most suitable for a prime contractor or consortium with proven capability in all of the following areas:

The opportunity is not well suited to a typical early stage startup applying alone, a software only provider, a general IT reseller without comparable supercomputer references or an organisation seeking a grant for its own AI project. Smaller specialist companies may nevertheless participate as consortium members or subcontractors if their roles, capacity, references and compliance can be documented.

Recommended preparation plan

Key risks and conditions

Official documents and source note

The authoritative source for the opportunity is the EU Funding and Tenders Portal procurement record and its associated invitation, descriptive document, declaration on honour and selection questionnaire.1

The technical, procedural, eligibility and guarantee analysis in this report is based on the published PIAST descriptive document and associated procurement templates available through the official portal.2

Footnotes

1. 1Official procurement record: PIAST AI Optimised Supercomputer on the EU Funding and Tenders Portal
2. 2Official procurement documents: PIAST descriptive document, request to participate invitation, selection questionnaire