Trento, Italy – August 20th, 2026
The European Lighthouse of AI for Sustainability (ELIAS) has officially selected four high-impact winning projects for its 2nd Open Call. These innovative initiatives receive funding, expert support, and pilot validation to advance AI technologies addressing wildfire prevention, energy-efficient digital infrastructure, edge-computed energy management, and sustainable building renovation across Europe.
By translating frontier AI research into real-world applications, the winning projects support the goals of the European Green Deal by prioritising energy efficiency, carbon reduction, data privacy, and resource awareness.
Interest Extending Well Beyond Europe
The call attracted remarkable interest, highlighting the vibrant European and global AI innovation ecosystem committed to tackling pressing societal and environmental challenges.
Targeted Use Cases (UCs)
Thorough Evaluation Process
Each proposal underwent a rigorous assessment by consortium members and two independent experts. Final selection was reserved strictly for the highest-scoring projects, with tie-breakers taking into account diversity, broader environmental and social impact, and submission timing.
Meet the Winners
RenovAIte (AI for Data-Driven Energy Renovation)
By NOBATEK — France | Focus Area: UC1 – AI for Building Optimisation
Addressing Europe’s ageing infrastructure, NOBATEK’s RenovAIte platform harnesses domain-specific Natural Language Processing (NLP) and generative AI to modernise construction workflows. The tool reduces document processing times by 60% and generates context-aware renovation scenarios that lower operational energy costs by up to 30% for tenants, tackling energy poverty and reducing embodied carbon footprints.
AdaptiveSight (AI for Sustainable Digital Out-of-Home)
By LIBRA AI Technologies P.C. — Greece | Focus Area: UC1 – AI for Building Optimisation
AdaptiveSight uses on-device computer vision to cut the energy consumption of Digital Out-of-Home (DOOH) advertising screens by 30–50%. Developed by LIBRA AI Technologies, the attention-aware system dynamically adjusts brightness and refresh rates only when spectators are looking at the display. All biometric processing occurs locally on Jetson Orin Nano edge nodes, ensuring complete compliance with European privacy standards.
HOTSPOT (Hybrid Orbital and Telemetric Sensors for Predicting On-site Threats)
By IoTique (Igloo Srl) — Italy | Focus Area: UC5 – AI for Forecasting Vegetation State
Developed by Trentino-based IoTique, HOTSPOT combines satellite imagery with low-cost LoRaWAN environmental sensors measuring temperature, humidity, and vegetation dryness to prevent wildfires. By applying foundation models (such as TimesFM) for anomaly detection and geospatial optimisation, the system alerts local authorities early via a simple online dashboard while engaging citizens directly in environmental stewardship.
GUARDIAN (Green, User-guided, Auditable Resource-aware Deployment for Industrial AI Networks)
By Ratio1 — Romania | Focus Area: UC7 – AI for Sustainable Energy Operations
Ratio1’s GUARDIAN introduces a reusable toolkit and benchmarking engine that shifts operational AI workloads away from power-heavy, centralised GPU clouds onto decentralised, CPU-first edge devices. Designed for renewable energy monitoring and operations-centre co-piloting, GUARDIAN minimises unnecessary computing and data transfer while ensuring human operators remain in full control through auditable outputs
Driving European Resilience
As extreme weather events, rising energy costs, and digital infrastructure demands test Europe’s infrastructure, the winning projects directly reinforce regional climate resilience and technological sovereignty. Moving from research concepts to operational pilots, these solutions demonstrate how lightweight, resource-aware AI can deliver tangible environmental protection and economic stability:
- Climate Adaptation & Ecosystem Protection: Systems like HOTSPOT empower small municipalities and rural agencies with early-warning wildfire intelligence, safeguarding biodiversity, reducing emissions from burning vegetation, and strengthening community emergency preparedness.
- Infrastructure & Energy Decarbonisation: Platforms such as RenovAIte and AdaptiveSight reduce structural energy waste across public spaces and built environments, accelerating building retrofits while supporting the EU Green Deal’s 55% emissions reduction target.
- Technological Autonomy & Data Sovereignty: Architectures like GUARDIAN validate that complex AI operations can run reliably on local CPU edge networks, lowering reliance on energy-intensive cloud facilities while keeping critical operational data secure, private, and fully auditable under the EU AI Act.
The 2nd Open Call builds upon the achievements of the ELIAS 1st Open Call, which funded four pioneering projects addressing critical European sustainability challenges: https://elias-ai.eu/open-call/
Access press release here: ELIAS Unveils Winners of 2nd Open Call: Accelerating AI Solutions for European Sustainability and Resilience
For the full ranking list of evaluated proposals, visit: ELIAS 2nd Open Call – Ranking List