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Powerful AI Computing

Playground Access to LUMI AI Factory

The Playground Access to LUMI AI Factory provides EU-based SMEs and startups with lightweight and fast access to LUMI. Paired with technical and onboarding support, it enables new users or those with smaller computational needs (5.000 GPUs) to research, develop, train and validate AI models. The resources are free of charge for civilian and innovation purposes of eligible companies.  

Service features

Services based on EuroHPC JU Playground Access to LUMI AI Factory (for all EU-based SMEs & startups), including:

  • Compute: 5.000 GPU hours on the LUMI partition (AMD MI250x GPUs)
  • Storage: Flexible and agreed individually; project storage and scratch space allocated during onboarding
  • Duration: 1, 2, or 3 months
  • Cost: Free of charge, subject to eligibility
  • Support:
    • Standard technical support for onboarding
    • Optional additional consultancy through other AI Factory services (e.g., AMD/NVIDIA porting, inference optimisation, data preparation or training)

Intended Activities / Supported Workload

Suitable for R&D, training and validation activities such as:

  • Fine-tuning open-source or domain-specific models (CV, NLP, multimodal)
  • Running first experiments on AMD MI250x hardware
  • Data exploration and preprocessing pipelines
  • Small-scale model training
  • Testing portability from NVIDIA → AMD
  • Inference experiments and performance benchmarking
  • Prototyping of internal AI tools before scaling (LLM-based assistants, classification models, recommendation systems, predictive analytics, etc.)

Reporting Requirements

Standard EuroHPC JU Final Report is required:

Access/Output Requirements

  • Access Requirements: short application form based on a template explaining proposal relevance 
  • They commit to publishing results (excluding confidential parts) while referencing EuroHPC JU and the AI Factory; data and models remain user-owned for commercial use by SMEs/startups.

Target groups

SMEs and startups from EU member states and associated countries.

Not eligible under this package:

  • Academia (must use AI for Science, Collaborative Projects, or other JU instruments)
  • Public administration (e.g., public organisations via national Try&Buy)
  • Large enterprises (must use national paid access when available)

Request process

Applications will be processed in the order they are received.  There is no competitive selection process and access can be granted within two working days. 

Applicants need to submit a short application explaining the relevance of their proposal (templates are provided). Proposals are evaluated on first-come, first-served basis. The process comprises eligibility and technical assessment. 

Upon successfully passing the above steps, applications will be granted access to the requested system. The application is a rolling one with no cut-offs (as per: https://www.eurohpc-ju.europa.eu/playground-access-ai-factories_en)

Pricing

The computing resources are provided open and free of charge to eligible startups and SMEs for innovation purposes. A short, non‑confidential report (for example a brief abstract of the use case and main outcomes) may be requested for public funding accountability, but detailed technical results and proprietary know‑how remain confidential and do not have to be disclosed.

Questions related to potential state‑aid implications, de minimis rules, or paid access for large companies are handled outside this Playground scheme under national calls and contracts, where confidentiality (including NDAs) is ensured according to national and site‑specific procedures.