TEN-D study - Investments in Trans European Digital Networks Study on topology, needs, market failure and investment gaps of backbone projects of stra...

This is a European Commission open service tender (EC-CNECT/2026/OP/0183) to produce an evidence-based study mapping European terrestrial and submarine backbone networks and assessing future capacity, resilience, security, ownership, market failures and investment gaps. The contractor must deliver GIS mapping, traffic and resilience simulations, interim and final reports and recommendations for possible interventions under the proposed European Competitiveness Fund. The estimated total contract value is €400,000 for a maximum 18 month contract period and submissions must be made electronically via the Funding and Tenders Portal by 6 November 2026 at 16:00 Brussels time.

What is funded

A consultancy study to map terrestrial and submarine backbone topology, assess current and future capacity, resilience and security gaps (including AI/data‑centre needs), identify market failures and investment gaps, and recommend EU funding interventions and instruments under the proposed European Competitiveness Fund (ECF).

Who can apply

Open tender for economic operators (sole tenderers or joint tenders). Subcontracting permitted; entities on whose capacities a tenderer relies must provide commitment letters. Registration in the Participant Register (PIC) and EU Login access required for eSubmission.

Footnotes

1. 1All submission and procurement documents, including tender specifications, draft contract, annexes and eSubmission access are available via the Funding & Tenders Portal opportunity page linked above.

Opportunity summary

Administrative and financial information

Eligibility and participation

Who should bid

Technical requirements and deliverables

Evaluation and award

Submission process and templates

Contractual and security obligations

Practical advice and system requirements

Prepare your submission early and validate your PIC and eSubmission access well in advance. eSubmission accepts files up to 50 MB per attachment, up to 200 files per submission; supported browsers are the latest Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox. The contracting authority will not accept tenders sent by email or post. Published procurement documents and Q&A are on the Portal Opportunity details and documents. 1

Categorisation fields (extracted answers)

Full summary and explanation

Footnotes

1. 1The official procurement documents, templates and eSubmission Quick Guide are available on the EU Funding & Tenders Portal opportunity page. Use the Portal link provided in the opportunity summary to access the Invitation to Tender, Tender Specifications, Annexes and draft contract.

TEN-D Study Procurement Opportunity

Executive assessment

This is a European Commission service tender, not a grant scheme. The successful contractor will provide an evidence-based study of strategic European backbone networks, covering terrestrial and submarine infrastructure, future capacity requirements, resilience, security, ownership, market failures and investment gaps. The study must translate its findings into recommendations for possible European Union intervention under the proposed European Competitiveness Fund.

The opportunity is highly relevant to research organisations, digital infrastructure consultancies, network engineering firms, economic and financial advisers, geospatial and data analytics specialists, cybersecurity experts and consortiums combining these capabilities. The procurement is technically demanding and requires access to network topology, traffic, infrastructure, routing, investment cost and market data, together with the ability to produce policy-grade analysis for the European Commission.

The estimated total contract value is €400,000. This amount is the Commission's estimated overall procurement value and not a grant allocation or funding rate. The financial offer must be a fixed price inclusive of staff, travel, subsistence and other costs.

The tender deadline is 6 November 2026 at 16:00 Brussels time. The public opening is scheduled for 9 November 2026 at 11:00 Brussels time. The Commission is not required to answer questions submitted after 28 October 2026 at 23:59 Brussels time.

Opportunity identification

The opportunity record and its published procurement documents are available through the official portal.1

What the Commission intends to purchase

The Commission is seeking data, analysis and recommendations to support the design and implementation of Trans European Digital Networks policy. The study complements the Cable Projects of European Interest exercise by broadening the analysis to terrestrial backbones and, where relevant, satellite and other forms of connectivity.

The assignment is intended to establish an integrated evidence base for future strategic investment in European backbone networks. It must examine how networks support data centres, AI facilities, AI factories, high-performance computing centres, cloud services, content delivery networks and other data-intensive services.

The study must identify infrastructure gaps and market failures that may prevent private investment from delivering adequate capacity, redundancy, resilience, security and European control. It must then recommend suitable public interventions, including the likely scale of support and the appropriate combination of grants, financial instruments, blending mechanisms and other European Competitiveness Fund tools.

Strategic policy context

The procurement is positioned within the European Union's digital sovereignty, competitiveness, resilience and security agenda. The background documents link the study to the increasing traffic generated by cloud, edge computing, AI, high-performance computing and distributed data centres.

The study also responds to the vulnerability of submarine cables and the need for diversified terrestrial and non-terrestrial backup routes. It is expected to complement existing work on cable security, Cable Projects of European Interest, network resilience, data flows, EuroHPC and hyperconnectivity rather than duplicate that work.

Future demand analysis must extend to 2035 and take account of the proposed Cloud and AI Development Act, including the objective of expanding European data centre capacity and the possible creation of data centre acceleration zones. Connectivity requirements should be assessed alongside capacity, latency, resilience, security, ownership and territorial cohesion.

Scope of work and expected tasks

Task 1: Mapping European terrestrial and submarine backbone networks

The contractor must produce a comprehensive baseline map of the European backbone network and the global submarine network. The work must combine existing Commission information with public, institutional, commercial and stakeholder data sources.

The mapping is expected to cover bandwidth, latency, Points of Presence, internet exchange points, data centres, high-performance computing centres, AI factories, gigafactories, antennas, ownership, infrastructure age and proximity to end of life. It must vectorise submarine cable paths, landing stations and terrestrial backbone routes in a GIS environment.

A central requirement is to detect hidden single points of failure where multiple logical routes depend on the same physical conduit, trench, bridge, landing area or maritime corridor. The contractor must also analyse traffic flows, autonomous systems, routing behaviour and current capacity gaps.

The resilience analysis must include large-scale simulations of localised disruptions, such as cross-border trench cuts, landing-zone failures and power outages. It must consider graph partitioning, isolation of AI factories and EuroHPC hubs, alternative routing and BGP failover capacity. Physical threat monitoring, interception and signal tapping risks must also be considered.

Task 2: Future connectivity needs and strategic project criteria

The contractor must forecast connectivity requirements through 2035, including future needs for capacity, latency, redundancy, resilience, security and ownership. The analysis must consider distributed access to AI, high-performance computing and next-generation data centres.

The output must include measurable objectives and prioritisation criteria for strategic backbone projects of European interest. These criteria must complement existing criteria for submarine cables and lead to an identified set of priority routes, infrastructure and investment areas beyond the existing Cable Projects of European Interest list.

Task 3: Investment needs, gaps and market failures

The contractor must translate the infrastructure objectives and priority routes into investment costs and implementation timelines. Costs must be separated between submarine cable and terrestrial backbone investments and justified by performance, resilience and security requirements.

The analysis should consider trusted suppliers, supply chain conditions, possible dominant market positions and cost effects associated with European or trusted supply. It must identify market failures such as insufficient competition, unequal bargaining power, externalities, public-good characteristics, information asymmetries and underinvestment in resilience and redundancy.

The study must also assess risks to European ownership and control of critical infrastructure. It should produce a risk and threat matrix and recommend legal, operational, regulatory and financial safeguards against loss of European ownership.

Task 4: Possible intervention under the European Competitiveness Fund

The contractor must assess possible European Competitiveness Fund interventions, including grants, financial instruments, blended finance and accelerated or targeted competitiveness actions. For each option, the study should consider suitability for the identified market failure, advantages, disadvantages, aid intensity, implementation feasibility and risk of market distortion.

The final recommendations must compare intervention scenarios and identify the combination of instruments that provides the strongest return for the European Union budget while addressing the identified investment gaps and minimising distortion of competition.

Deliverables and timetable

The procurement documents require four principal report products in addition to the inception report: a first interim report covering Tasks 1 and 2, a second interim report covering Tasks 3 and 4, a workshop report and a final report. The principal reports are expected to be approximately 40 to 50 pages, while the workshop report should not exceed 10 pages.

The Task 1 and Task 2 outputs must include a GIS map in suitable vector and raster formats. The contractor must also provide calculation files supporting the capacity and resilience gap analysis. The Task 2 interim output must add the proposed strategic backbones of European interest to the GIS map.

Reports must be supplied in editable electronic formats such as document, spreadsheet, presentation and GIS formats, together with publication-ready PDF versions. Reports must include an executive summary, methodology, evidence, glossary, bibliography and clear separation between facts, assumptions and extrapolations.

Eligibility and applicant profile

The procedure is open to economic operators able to meet the exclusion, selection, technical, professional and financial requirements in the tender specifications. The materials allow a sole tenderer or a joint tender submitted by a group of economic operators.

A consortium is likely to be advantageous because the assignment combines telecommunications engineering, network topology, traffic analysis, GIS, resilience simulation, cybersecurity, infrastructure economics, investment appraisal, market failure analysis, public finance and EU policy knowledge.

The tender specifications indicate that the opportunity is not identified as SME suitable. This does not by itself prohibit SMEs from participating, but the breadth and sensitivity of the work may favour a consortium, a larger specialist consultancy or a prime contractor supported by specialist subcontractors.

Potential applicant capabilities

Participation structures and supporting entities

A joint tender requires an agreement or power of attorney identifying all group members and the group leader. Group members are jointly and severally liable to the contracting authority for contract performance. The group leader acts as the single contact point, submits the tender, signs contractual documents and coordinates invoicing and delivery.

Subcontracting is permitted subject to disclosure of identified subcontractors, their roles and the proportion of the contract they will perform. Identified subcontractors must provide commitment letters and accept relevant contractual conditions, including checks and audits.

A tenderer may rely on the financial, economic, technical or professional capacity of another entity. Such an entity must provide a commitment confirming that the necessary resources will be made available if the contract is awarded. The tenderer must also demonstrate that the arrangement satisfies the applicable selection requirements.

Exclusion, integrity and compliance requirements

Each relevant legal or natural person must complete the declaration on honour covering exclusion and selection criteria. The declaration addresses insolvency, tax and social security compliance, grave professional misconduct, fraud, corruption, criminal organisation, money laundering, terrorist financing, trafficking, irregularities, serious contractual deficiencies and obstruction of investigations or audits.

The declaration also covers persons with powers of representation, decision-making or control, beneficial owners and persons with unlimited liability where applicable. Tenderers must declare the absence of conflicts of interest, compliance with EU restrictive measures, absence of established debts to the Union and independent preparation of the tender.

Where an exclusion situation exists, remedial measures may be presented. The contracting authority may request documentary evidence such as judicial extracts, tax certificates, social security certificates or equivalent documents. Evidence may not be required where it has already been supplied and remains current or where it is available through a free national database.

Participant registration and electronic submission

Every tenderer and each member of a joint tender must be registered in the European Commission Participant Register and have a Participant Identification Code. Existing organisations should reuse their existing code and verify that their organisation data is current.

Submission is exclusively electronic through the eSubmission system on the Funding and Tenders Portal. Submissions by email, post or other means will be disregarded. An EU Login account is required to access the submission function, submit questions and manage the tender.

Tenderers should allow sufficient time for organisation registration, PIC validation, electronic signatures, document conversion, upload and receipt verification. The eSubmission receipt and timestamp provide evidence of timely submission. A tender received after the deadline will be rejected.

The published eSubmission guidance indicates that individual attachments must be below 50 MB and that the system supports up to 200 documents per tender. Tenderers should check the current system requirements before submission because technical limits and accepted file formats may change.

A tender may be withdrawn or replaced before the deadline. If more than one tender is submitted and earlier versions are not withdrawn, only the latest tender is considered. The later tender must contain all required information and documents and may not rely on earlier submissions to complete or correct it.

Evaluation and award

The precise subcriteria, minimum technical requirements and documentary evidence must be taken from the current tender specifications and annexes. A tender should not assume that a strong technical proposal can compensate for a failure to meet a mandatory selection or submission requirement.

The tender must be valid for six months. Preparation and submission costs are borne by the tenderer and are not reimbursed. The contracting authority may cancel the procedure before signature without an entitlement to compensation, subject to the applicable procurement rules.

Financial conditions

The estimated overall contract amount is €400,000 for the single lot and maximum 18 month contract period. The procurement does not specify a grant percentage, co-financing rate, eligible cost rate or award per beneficiary because it is a purchased service contract rather than a funding call.

The financial form requires a breakdown of senior and junior staff, unit prices per day, days allocated to each task, travel and subsistence and other costs. The final financial offer is a fixed price not subject to revision and inclusive of all expenses.

The financial plan should therefore include project management, data acquisition, specialist software or datasets, GIS development, modelling, stakeholder engagement, meetings, workshop delivery, travel, accommodation, translation or language support where needed, quality assurance, data protection and final publication preparation.

Security, data protection and intellectual property

The procurement includes a specific appendix on security requirements. Given the subject matter, applicants should expect controls concerning sensitive infrastructure information, access management, secure data handling, confidentiality, personnel responsibilities, incident management and restrictions on disclosure. The precise obligations must be reviewed in the security appendix and draft contract before submission.

Where personal data are processed, the contractor must comply with Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 and the Commission's instructions and records for targeted consultation activities, including surveys, interviews and focus groups.

Deliverables must comply with copyright, intellectual property, accessibility and Commission publication requirements. The contractor must ensure that data, text, tables, graphics, maps and software outputs can lawfully be supplied and reused under the contract.

Use of artificial intelligence tools is not automatically authorised. The tender proposal must identify intended AI use, the tasks or deliverables concerned, expected added value, risks and mitigation measures. Use is subject to approval during the inception phase and must not infringe third-party copyright. Permitted AI use must be acknowledged in the deliverables.

The reports must use the Commission's required disclaimer and publication conventions. Abstracts and executive summaries are required in English and French, although the working language and main deliverables are English.

Key bid preparation priorities

Principal risks for applicants

Recommended consortium structure

Overall conclusion

This is a specialised strategic policy and infrastructure research procurement with a single contract value of €400,000 and an 18 month delivery period. It is not an opportunity to obtain direct infrastructure deployment funding. Its value for applicants lies in winning a contract to shape the evidence base and intervention architecture for future European backbone investment.

The strongest tenders will combine credible access to network and infrastructure data with technically rigorous modelling, defensible investment economics, clear treatment of uncertainty and a practical understanding of European funding instruments. A consortium or prime contractor with complementary specialist partners is likely to be better positioned than a generalist research provider.

Applicants should treat the official tender specifications, draft contract, security requirements, financial form and all published amendments as controlling documents. They should also monitor the Funding and Tenders Portal for updates and submit any clarification questions before the stated deadline.

Footnotes

1. 1Authoritative opportunity record and procurement documents: EU Funding and Tenders Portal opportunity. The Funding and Tenders Portal is the European Commission's central entry point for EU funding and procurement procedures.Funding and Tenders Portal guidance wsrch1