Europe is taking control of its digital future. With the launch of LLMs4Europe, a major new project funded by the Digital Europe Programme and coordinated by ALT-EDIC, over 70 partners from across the continent have joined forces to build open, trustworthy, and multilingual Large Language Models (LLMs) tailored to European needs.

The goal? To create domain-specific LLMs for five strategic sectors: Energy, Telecommunications, Tourism, Public Services, and Science.

Science Pilot: Building AI that Understands Research

The Science Pilot, coordinated by CrossLang, brings together OpenAIRE, Athena Research Center, CNRS, CNR, and BSC among others to create LLM-based tools for researchers and policymakers. These models will support multilingual literature discovery, evidence synthesis, and automated policy briefs in areas such as life sciences and social sciences.

Crucially, the pilot connects to the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC), leveraging Europe’s open science infrastructure to access, process, and validate scientific knowledge. OpenAIRE leads efforts to mobilise trusted, multilingual content from repositories, publishers, and scholarly societies, effectively building a Data Space connector to power the fine-tuned LLM models with FAIR and verified data. It will also co-develop applications to test the factual reliability of outputs, ensuring that AI tools for science remain transparent and accountable.

This is a unique opportunity to democratise science in the era of AI. By linking LLMs from trusted sources such as the AltEdic with the EOSC ecosystem and verified open content, we are putting the research community in control of AI development, not the other way around.

In addition, OpenAIRE hopes to learn from the data space architecture and governance models developed in the project, and to create synergies with AI technology providers, paving the way for new applications that combine open science and cutting-edge AI.

Pilots for Other Strategic Sectors

The project also tackles four additional domains where LLMs can make a difference:

• Energy: Supporting companies and regulators with multilingual access to technical, regulatory, and policy documentation to accelerate the green transition.
• Telecommunications: Enhancing user experience through LLM-driven multilingual support, intelligent query handling, and inclusive services.
• Tourism:  Promoting cultural diversity and sustainable travel with AI-driven translation, personalisation, and content generation for local destinations.
• Public Services:< Helping citizens understand rights, navigate complex procedures, and access public information in their own languages.

Launch in Villers-Cotterêts: A Symbol of Europe's Language Identity

The project kicked off in Villers-Cotterêts, home to ALT-EDIC and the newly opened Cité internationale de la langue française, a cultural landmark that celebrates language and inclusion. Fittingly, this is where King François I signed the 1539 ordinance declaring French the official administrative language. Today, it serves as a powerful symbol for Europe’s efforts to protect and promote its linguistic and cultural diversity in the digital age.