Scalable Integrated Reconfigurable Energy-Efficient Neuromorphic Acceleratorsbroad
SIRENA · Horizon Europe grant · 2026-04-01–2029-03-31
EC contribution
Total cost
Beneficiaries
About the data
Source: CORDIS (official EU open data), Horizon Europe. Framework HORIZON · call HORIZON-EIC-2025-TRANSITIONOPEN · scheme HORIZON-EIC · topic HORIZON-EIC-2025-TRANSITIONOPEN. CORDIS record →
Objective
The explosion of artificial intelligence (AI) has unleashed a gold rush for AI accelerator chips, specialized chips that power everything from chatbots to self-driving cars. The large energy footprint forms a major global problem. SIRENA is Europe’s leap to build a new semiconductor business that makes AI efficient from edge to cloud. We will industrialize Reconfigurable Nonlinear-Processing Units: CMOS-compatible devices that perform analogue signal transformation and feature extraction with tunable nonlinearity and local adaptivity. The result is 10x lower energy, reduced latency, and far higher density than today’s digital accelerators. RNPUs complement CPUs, GPUs, NPUs, or power standalone accelerators, enabling always-on intelligence in watches, cars, sensors, and servers. Backed by EIC Pathfinder HYBRAIN results and a recent Nature study, SIRENA lifts the platform from proof of principle to TRL 6 demonstrators. Together with early adopters such as Toyota and Swatch, we investigate concrete use cases in adaptive fuel-cell control and always-on wearables. SIRENA is a venture plan. Commercialisation will be driven by a seasoned team combining many years of experience in entrepreneurship with leading scientists supported by an industry advisory board. We will secure a strong IP position while scaling the model from kits and design-ins to licensed IP cores and later turnkey ASICs. Already several renown venture funds have expressed great interest to help and potentially invest in the later stage of SIRENA. Our mission is ambitious: ship the world’s most efficient and versatile AI accelerator and seed a European ecosystem around it. By 2032 our hardware will execute billions of tasks daily while cutting electricity bills, extending battery life, and shrinking carbon footprints. SINERAs impact is immediate: partners gain energy savings, lower cost, and faster time to market while Europe gains sovereign capability in a strategic layer of the next wave of innovation.
Beneficiaries (1)
| Organisation | Country | Role | EC contribution | SME |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| UNIVERSITEIT TWENTE | NL | coordinator | €2,498,970 |
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