AI for Manufacturing Challenge: Revisiting industrial design with AI
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The Paris Region, EIT Manufacturing, Fives and Michelin are looking for your AI solutions for industrial design.
The prize? A grant of up to EUR 500,000.
Project type
This challenge consists of developing and validating solutions for industrial design to improve engineering efficiency. To guide candidates, a list of five use cases is provided:
- UC1: Assisting designers in producing technical documents and user manuals;
- UC2: Assisting designers in the design of recurring elements;
- UC3: Automatic detection and assistance for designers in the processing of non-conformities;
- UC4: Translation of technical specifications into design constraints;
- UC5: Design proposals based on historical designs.
This list is provided as a guideline, any other solution relevant to manufacturing engineering may be considered.
Targets
- Research institutions and laboratories
- Professionals – Very small businesses < 10
- Professionals – SMEs < 250
- Professionals – Mid-sized companies < 5,000
Details on the target audience
Applicant companies must be either:
- Microbusinesses and small businesses (companies with fewer than 50 employees and annual revenue or total annual balance sheet not exceeding EUR 10 million),
- Medium-sized enterprises (companies with fewer than 250 employees and annual revenue of less than EUR 50 million or total annual balance sheet not exceeding EUR 43 million),
- Mid-cap companies (companies with 250 to 4,999 employees, with annual turnover not exceeding EUR 1.5 billion or total annual balance sheet not exceeding EUR 2 billion, and which are not affiliated with a larger group).
- Consortia comprising either a public laboratory and one (or more) private companies, or several micro-enterprises, small enterprises, medium-sized enterprises, or mid-sized companies from the EU or Switzerland with a project to set up within six months in the Paris Region are also eligible to apply. One application per consortium is expected.
Nature
Maximum grant of EUR 500,000 including tax, to be divided among the partners in a consortium bid, according to the following rates:
- 60% of project-related expenses for micro-enterprises and small enterprises,
- 50% of post-Challenge project-related expenses for medium-sized enterprises,
- 40% of post-Challenge project-related expenses for mid-cap companies.
Laboratories associated with a company may receive 100% funding up to a limit of EUR 120,000, subject to compliance with European state aid regulations applicable to these structures.
Intervention rates may vary depending on the project or the nature of the actors involved and are provided for informational purposes only.
Procedure
Applicants must return:
- their presentation of their response to the use cases formulated by the manufacturers (PowerPoint format)
- the completed pre-selection form
In the case of a consortium, only one response per consortiums is expected.
DEADLINE: 10 February 2026, 23.59 CET.
Application
Submit your documents now to be considered for the grant.
Important Documentation
Conctacts