In short. From 22 October 2026, micro, small and medium-sized businesses based in Piedmont, Italy, can apply for the Digitalisation Voucher: a non-repayable grant covering 50% to 65% of the investment (up to €25,000) for projects in artificial intelligence, big data, IoT, cloud, cybersecurity and other digital technologies. Applications are processed first come, first served, and the window may close before 15 December. This article covers eligibility, eligible costs, three data and AI project examples with the numbers worked out, the documents to prepare and the mistakes that cost companies their grant.
Every time a digitalisation grant comes out, business owners ask me the same question: “Does AI count?”. This year the answer is yes, and it is written in the call itself. The third edition of the SME Digitalisation Voucher run by the Piedmont Region and the Piedmont Chambers of Commerce lists computer vision, natural language processing, predictive maintenance and generative AI applied to business processes among the eligible technologies, alongside big data, IoT, cloud and CRM.
If your company is foreign-owned but has a registered office or an operating site in Piedmont, it can apply on the same terms as any Italian SME. One detail changes everything: applications are assessed in the order they are submitted, until funds run out, and Unioncamere Piemonte can suspend the window once requests exceed 120% of the budget. The official deadline is 15 December, but companies that wait until December may find it already closed.
The call at a glance
| Item | Details |
|---|---|
| Budget | €19.2 million (€18 million ERDF, €1.2 million Chambers of Commerce) |
| Who can apply | Micro, small and medium-sized enterprises with a registered office or operating site in Piedmont |
| Grant rate | 65% micro, 60% small, 50% medium enterprises, plus bonuses (up to +2 points, +5 for collaborative projects) |
| Voucher amount | From €4,000 (micro) or €5,000 (small and medium) up to €25,000 |
| Minimum investment | €6,153.85 micro, €8,333.33 small, €10,000 medium |
| State aid regime | De minimis (EU Regulation 2023/2831) |
| Applications | From 11:00 on 22 October to 16:00 on 15 December 2026, on the ReStart platform; pre-loading from 12 October |
| Assessment | First come, first served, until funds are exhausted |
Each bonus adds one percentage point (legality rating, women-led or youth-led business, gender equality certification, innovative startup or SME), with an overall cap of two points. Collaborative projects of 3 to 20 companies, led by an aggregator such as a Digital Innovation Hub or a technology transfer centre, get five extra points.
Eligibility
Besides being an active SME in Piedmont with an eligible ATECO activity code, the company must meet a few requirements worth checking straight away, because a single missing one makes the application inadmissible:
- Up-to-date social security contributions (DURC) and Chamber of Commerce annual fee paid for the last three years.
- Catastrophic risk insurance in place, as required by Italian law.
- No grant received under the 2023 and 2024 editions of the same call.
- No anti-mafia impediments or disqualifying sanctions.
- One application per company.
What can be funded
The call lists 19 technology areas. For data-driven projects, the most relevant are:
- AI for computer vision and image recognition;
- AI for natural language processing and document automation;
- predictive AI for maintenance;
- generative AI applied to business processes;
- big data and analytics;
- Internet of Things;
- cloud, edge and fog computing;
- business process systems (ERP, MES, PLM, SCM) and CRM.
E-commerce is eligible only when linked to another technology on the list: an online shop on its own does not qualify.
The three cost categories
- Capital goods and instrumental services, including devices and connectivity, as long as they serve to introduce the chosen technology. Fees and subscriptions (software licences, cloud services) are eligible for up to two years.
- Consulting related to introducing the technologies.
- Training related to introducing the technologies.
Consulting and training together cannot exceed 30% of total eligible costs. The rest must be investment in goods and instrumental services.
What is not eligible
The exclusions I see overlooked most often: costs incurred before the application is submitted, items under €500, smartphones, advertising, tax, legal or promotional consulting, ISO certifications, used or leased goods and any cash payment, even partial. Simply replacing PCs and tablets is allowed only if you show the new device is essential to the project.
Three data and AI projects that fit the call
Here are three typical projects with indicative figures. The numbers show proportions; your actual quote depends on your case.
1. An assistant that answers questions on internal documents
Manuals, procedures, data sheets, contracts: a RAG-based assistant indexes them and answers staff or customer questions, citing the source. Technologies: natural language processing and generative AI. Typical costs: building the platform, model licences and cloud for two years, consulting on document preparation, staff training. For custom development, it is worth asking the Chamber of Commerce how to classify it among the cost categories.
Data & AI Audit
Before you invest, find out what your company actually needs: a written analysis with priorities, indicative costs and a roadmap, at a fixed price.
Example for a micro enterprise: €15,000 investment, with at most €4,500 for consulting and training. Grant at 65%: €9,750. Net cost to the company: €5,250 plus VAT.
2. IoT monitoring of machines or environments
Sensors on production lines, cold rooms, greenhouses or warehouses; data flows into a time-series database such as InfluxDB and is visualised in Grafana, with automatic alerts. Technologies: IoT, big data and, if you add models that anticipate failures, predictive AI.
Example for a small enterprise: €20,000 investment across sensors, gateways, platform and cloud, including €5,000 for consulting and training. Grant at 60%: €12,000.
3. Unified sales data and dashboards
Orders in the ERP, contacts in spreadsheets, campaigns in yet another tool: a big data and analytics project brings them into a single database, connected to a CRM and to dashboards that update automatically, like the ones you can build with Looker Studio. If nobody in the company knows which file is the right one anymore, this is where to start.
Example for a medium enterprise: €30,000 investment. A 50% grant would be €15,000, below the €25,000 cap.
How to apply, step by step
- Complete the SELFI4.0 self-assessment on the Punti Impresa Digitale portal: it is mandatory and must date from the last 12 months.
- Get a qualified digital signature for the legal representative: all attachments must be signed in CAdES format (.p7m). You also need a €16 revenue stamp.
- Collect supplier quotes: they feed into the cost statement (Annex B). The more detailed they are, the smoother the assessment.
- Check your consulting and training suppliers. They must fall into one of the categories in Article 6: Digital Innovation Hubs, competence centres, certified innovation managers, technology transfer centres, or suppliers active for at least one year with at least three consulting or training engagements in the last three years (self-declaration, Annex C). There are no requirements for suppliers of goods.
- Pre-load the application on ReStart from 12 October, directly or through a delegated intermediary.
- Submit from 11:00 on 22 October. Order of arrival matters.
After the award
The outcome arrives within 120 days of the window closing. From the award decision you have six months to complete the project and report. Electronic invoices must show the project code (CUP), payments must be traceable, and you must prove you spent between 70% and 100% of the declared amount: below 70% the whole grant is revoked.
Mistakes that cost you the grant
- Starting before applying. An invoice dated before submission is not eligible.
- Hiring a consultant outside the eligible categories. The consulting cost is excluded.
- Inflating the quote. If you then spend less than 70%, you lose everything: a realistic project is safer.
- Overloading the project with consulting. Anything above 30% is not funded.
- Waiting until December. With first come, first served, the real deadline may be well before the 15th.
- Buying technology without a problem to solve. The grant covers costs, not the risk of a project nobody uses.
Where to start
The call asks for technologies and costs to be stated precisely, and six months of implementation is not much if the project is unclear from the start. So the first step is not asking for quotes, but understanding which problem to solve and with which tool: an analysis of your processes and existing data, a cost estimate and clear priorities among the possible ideas.
That is exactly what the data and AI audit for SMEs delivers: a roadmap with technologies, timelines and costs you can use as the basis for the application and the quotes. If you want to know whether your idea can be funded and how to set it up, get in touch by mid-October so you are ready on the 22nd.
Sources: Piedmont Region, third edition of the Digitalisation Voucher; full text of the 2026 SME Digitalisation Voucher call (Italian). Information current as of October 2026: always check the official text and the Chamber of Commerce FAQs before applying.
