Swiss AI Initiative – Large Grants

Thematic areas and topic domains

The call is open for all proposals that align with the goals of the Swiss AI initiative and require considerable computational resources. 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. 

For the 4th call, proposals in the following topic domains are welcome:

• 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.

Eligibility requirements

• The main applicant who submits the application and serves as the scientific lead, must be affiliated with a Swiss public academic and/or public research institution, for the whole duration of the project and must be in a position to carry out independent research:

1. as Full, Associate, Tenure-Track Professor or similar, or
2. as senior researcher, i.e., holding at least a PhD plus minimum two years of research experience.

• Co-applicants must be affiliated with a Swiss or foreign public academic and/or public research institution, for the whole duration of the project and must be in a position to carry out independent research:

1. as Full, Associate, Tenure-Track Professor or similar, or
2. as senior researcher, i.e., holding at least a PhD plus minimum two years of research experience, or
3. as recognized researcher, i.e., holding at least a PhD.

• Proposals may include additional partners (not requesting nor accessing any resources), such as administrations, NGOs, SMEs, or Startups

Funding

The funding covers: 

• Large project grants are allocated for a period of one year and provide access to compute resources on the Clariden vCluster on Alps (GH200 architecture) for AI projects that require large-scale training, evaluation, and deployment capabilities. The requested computational resources can exceed 500K compute hours.

How to apply

Please explore the Application toolkit and read carefully the application guidelines.

All required documents must be submitted on the online submission platform.

All documents must be submitted in English.

Deadline

A short Declaration of Intent must be submitted by 24 August 2026 (17:00 CEST).

The submission deadline for the full proposal is on 14 September 2026 (17:00 CEST).

Evaluation

The selection will be based on the following criteria, assessed by external reviewers:

• scientific excellence;
• strength and complementarity of the team;
• expected impact;
• feasibility of the project in a one-year time frame;

The technical feasibility evaluation will be conducted by two CSCS reviewers and will be based on the following criteria:

• project readiness;
• application efficiency;
• budget justification and timeline.