To address the expected outcomes described above, applicants are requested to respond to one of the following challenges:

• Develop new and innovative products and services designed by industrial and user requirements, having Copernicus data assets and services products at their core, and scaling up to the increased data volumes of Copernicus’ archives, by solving the technological challenges related to Artificial Intelligence, AI, High Performance Computing (HPC,), Big Data processing and management, and the integration with distributed data sources from other industrial domains.
• Develop new, enabling, scalable, operational solutions and technologies to improve capabilities and performance of the Copernicus value chain and supporting infrastructure: from access and discovery of data and information (required to fully integrate Copernicus data archives, including into the wider web of data and connect to European Data Spaces, in a machine to machine modality) to integration with other data sources and analysis to delivery and applications. Proposals can address individual elements of the value chain or the value chain as a whole.

For both challenges applicants are requested to provide quantitative measures of the progress beyond the state of the art.

To ensure a balanced portfolio covering the two challenges described above, grants will be awarded to applications not only in order of ranking but at least also to one project that is the highest ranked within each area, provided that the applications attain all thresholds.