Swiss AI Initiative – 2nd Call for Large Grants
@ 2025 EPFL AI Center
The Swiss AI Initiative aims to build capacities for trustworthy large-scale AI systems, leveraging Switzerland’s top AI research institutions, a world-class GPU supercomputing infrastructure, and a commitment to open science.
To accelerate progress the Swiss AI Initiative offers significant project funding and access to GPU compute resources through large project grants. The second call for proposals is now open.
The initiative focuses on developing foundation models and advancing responsible, efficient, and socially aligned AI technologies with significant impact for the Swiss and global community.
Through targeted funding, the Swiss AI Initiative enables cutting-edge research and the development of open science outputs in key areas of foundation model development, as well as high-impact application domains addressing critical societal challenges.
Thematic areas:
The call is open for all proposals that align with the goals of the Swiss AI initiative and require considerable computational resources to achieve their aims. Proposals should outline a research agenda that matches several of the following criteria:
- advance core AI capabilities (scalability, efficiency, alignment, safety, multimodal integration or evaluation)
- advance research in AI fundamentals or impact applications of AI
- benefit the Swiss or European or global ecosystem and societal context
- foster interdisciplinary collaboration, and/or collaboration across more than one group
- ensure ethical AI use and regulatory compliance
- promote principles of open science (including open-source, open weights, open data)
- foster participation of various stakeholders, such as public administration, SMEs, Startups, NGOs
Topics:
For this second call, proposals for the following topic domains are requested:
- LLMs
- Multimodality
- AI Safety
- AI for Education
- AI for Science (including biology, chemistry, physics, astronomy and others)
- AI for Health
- AI for Climate & Weather modeling
- AI for Robotics
- Strengthening the interface of AI and democratic processes, including for example media, law and justice, or the public administration
However, proposals in other areas will also be considered.
Who can apply?
- Applicants that are eligible to apply for funding must have an affiliation with an ETH Domain institution (EPFL, ETHZ, PSI, WSL, Empa, Eawag) and be employed in a permanent or Professor tenure-track capacity.
- Cross-institutional collaborations are strongly encouraged: computational resources can be accessed by co-applicants from the ETH Domain institutions and from other academic institutions (in Switzerland and abroad).
- Proposals may include additional partners (not requesting nor accessing any resources), such as administrations, NGOs, SMEs, or Startups.
The funding/support covers:
- Access to the CSCS Alps supercomputing infrastructure. (The compute hours amount requested can exceed 500k computer hours, though smaller amounts are also possible.)
- Funding for personnel and research expenses (CHF 2M total available, max CHF 1M per project)
- Dedicated engineering support from the Swiss AI Initiative team will be available for the funded projects (48 FTE-months total across all projects).
- Large project grants are allocated for a period of one year.
Submission deadline:
A short Declaration of Intent must be submitted by 25 August 2025 and the deadline for the full proposals is 8 September 2025 (17:00 CEST)
Applications need to be submitted via the online submission platform.
More information:
More information about the focus of the call, the eligibility requirements and application process can be found in the call guidelines.
For questions and more information, please contact: [email protected]