SPRIND Challenge: AI-Native Chip Design

Funding for projects dedicated to the rapid design of high-efficiency AI chips with the help of AI-native systems

Bundesagentur für Sprunginnovationen (SPRIND – German Federal Agency for Breakthrough Innovation) acts as a forum between the German government, industry, and research representatives. SPRIND finances international research and development projects for ground-breaking technologies and topics that have the potential to fundamentally improve people’s lives.

The aim of the AI-Native Chip Design Challenge is to leverage AI to drastically shorten the design process of high-performance chips and develop concrete, production-ready chip designs tailored for AI applications. Projects should develop AI methods that enable the design of new chips within weeks. This development should directly lead to concrete, tape-out ready designs for high-performance chips. The overarching objective is to dramatically accelerate the chip design process. In addition, the Challenge aims to mobilize private venture capital and strategic investment, securing the financial resources required to build sustainable international competitiveness for European chip design innovations.

The initiative focuses primarily on CMOS-based chip architectures. However, to keep the search space open for new computing paradigms rather than restricting innovation to dominant architectures, photonic, neuromorphic, memristive, and analog computing concepts are also eligible to apply. Novel architectural concepts, such as in-memory computing, heterogeneous integration, or 3D stacking, are strongly encouraged.

The Challenge views chip design as a system-level problem. Hardware, software, and industrial applications must align seamlessly. Teams must co-develop the software stack from day one and ensure compatibility via optimised Hardware Abstraction Layers (HALs). The use of independent, open platforms is preferred. Proprietary solutions such as CUDA, which create single-vendor lock-in, should be avoided.

This is a joint call between SPRIND and the new National Agency for Disruptive Innovation (NADI) currently being established in the Netherlands.