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1. EuroHPC supercomputers shall be located in a Participating State that is a Member State. In case a Participating State is already hosting a EuroHPC supercomputer which is a high-end or a mid-range supercomputer, it shall not be eligible to participate in a new call for expression of interest for the incremental generation of such supercomputers before at least five years from the selection date following a previous call for expression of interest. In the case of the acquisition of quantum computers and quantum simulators, or the upgrade of a EuroHPC supercomputer with quantum accelerators, that period is reduced to two years.

2. For the EuroHPC supercomputers referred to in Articles 11, 12 and 14, the hosting entity may represent a Participating State that is a Member State or a hosting consortium. The hosting entity and the competent authorities of the Participating State or Participating States in a hosting consortium shall enter into an agreement to that effect.

3. The Joint Undertaking shall entrust to a hosting entity the operation of each individual EuroHPC supercomputer fully owned by the Joint Undertaking, or jointly owned in accordance with Articles 11, 12 and 14.

4. Hosting entities referred to in paragraph 2 of this Article shall be selected in accordance with paragraph 5 of this Article and the Joint Undertaking’s financial rules referred to in Article 19.

5. Following a call for expression of interest, the hosting entity referred to in paragraph 2 of this Article and the corresponding Participating State where the hosting entity is established or the corresponding hosting consortium shall be selected by the Governing Board through a fair and transparent process based, inter alia, on the following criteria:

(a) compliance with the general system specifications defined in the call for expression of interest;

(b) total cost of ownership of the EuroHPC supercomputer, including an accurate estimate and a verification method of the operating costs of this supercomputer during its lifetime;

(c) experience of the hosting entity in installing and operating similar systems;

(d) quality of the hosting facility’s physical and IT infrastructure, its security and its connectivity with the rest of the Union;

(e) quality of service to the users, namely capability to comply with the service level agreement provided among the documents accompanying the selection procedure;

(f) provision of an appropriate supporting document proving the commitment of the Member State where the hosting entity is established or of the competent authorities of the Participating States of the hosting consortium to cover the share of the total cost of ownership of the EuroHPC supercomputer that is not covered by the Union contribution as set out in Article 5 or any other Union contribution as set out in Article 6, either until its ownership is transferred by the Joint Undertaking to that hosting entity or until the supercomputer is sold or decommissioned if there is no transfer of ownership.

For the AI-optimised supercomputers the following additional selection criteria shall apply for the hosting entities:

(a) proximity with an established datacentre or connection to an established datacentre via very high speed networks;

(b) vision, plans and capability of the hosting entity to address the challenges of the AI startup ecosystem, the research and innovation ecosystem and the AI user community, and providing a supportive centralised or distributed AI-oriented supercomputing service;

(c) quality and pertinence of experience and know-how available amongst the team that is expected to be in charge for the supportive AI-oriented supercomputing service environment;

(d) plans for interaction and cooperation with other AI factories, with EuroHPC Competence Centres and EuroHPC Centres of Excellence and with relevant AI initiatives such as the hubs of Artificial Intelligence startups, the Artificial Intelligence and data ecosystems, the Artificial Intelligence Testing and Experimentation Facilities, the European central Artificial Intelligence platform, the Artificial Intelligence-oriented Digital Innovation Hubs and other related initiatives;

(e) existing capabilities and future plans of the hosting entity to contribute to the development of the talent pool.

5a. An existing hosting entity may apply to become an AI factory. Following a call for expression of interest, an existing hosting entity shall be selected by the Governing Board through a fair and transparent process based, inter alia, on the selection criteria described in Article 9(5), second subparagraph, and provided that the hosting entity can demonstrate that its EuroHPC supercomputer has enough computing resources for training large scale, general-purpose AI models and emerging AI applications.

6. For the industrial-grade EuroHPC supercomputers referred to in Article 13, the hosting entity shall enter into an agreement with a consortium of private partners for preparing the acquisition and for operating such supercomputers or partitions of EuroHPC supercomputers. Hosting an industrial-grade supercomputer shall respect the following conditions:

(a) the Joint Undertaking shall entrust to the hosting entity the operation of each individual industrial-grade EuroHPC supercomputer jointly owned in accordance with Article 13;

(b) hosting entities shall be selected in accordance with paragraph 5 of this Article and the Joint Undertaking’s financial rules referred to in Article 19;

(c) following a call for expression of interest, the hosting entity and its associated consortium of private partners shall be selected by the Governing Board through a fair and transparent process based, inter alia, on the following:

(i) the criteria set out in paragraphs 5(a) to 5(e) of this Article; and (ii) the provision of an appropriate supporting document proving the commitment of the consortium of private partners to cover the share of the total cost of ownership of the EuroHPC supercomputer that is not covered by the Union contribution as set out in Article 5 or any other Union contribution as set out in Article 6.

6a. For the AI-optimised supercomputers referred to in Article 12a, the hosting entity shall create a one-stop shop for users, including startups, small and medium-sized enterprises and scientific users, to facilitate access to its support services.

7. The selected hosting entity may decide to invite, subject to the prior agreement of the Commission, additional Participating States, or a consortium of private partners, to join the hosting consortium. The financial or in-kind contribution or any other commitment of the joining Participating States, or Private Members, shall not affect the Union financial contribution and the corresponding ownership rights and percentage of access time allocated to the Union with regard to that EuroHPC supercomputer as defined in Articles 11, 12, 13, and 14.