Public procurement notice: Contract Notice
Published: 2020-12-04
Buyer: Forum Virium Helsinki Ltd
Country: FI
Contract type: Services
Procedure: Open procedure
CPV classification: 73120000
Estimated value: 4666630 EUR
Submission deadline: 2021-02-28
Award criteria: The most economic tender

Technical requirements: This pre-commercial procurement is carried out by Forum Virium Helsinki who was appointed as lead procurer in the name and on behalf the group listed in I.1. The applicable national law is Finnish.
AI4Cities is a pre-commercial procurement (PCP) to buy R&D services to support cities' transition to carbon neutrality, by applying the use of AI and related technologies to reduce the Cities GHG emissions.
The commonly identified procurement need shared by all procurers in the buyers group is for solutions that support cities transition to carbon neutrality via AI and related enabling digital technologies.
Based on this, two domains linked to the cities’ strategies and carbon-positive goals have been identified, which are mobility and energy. They will form the two lots of the Pre-Commercial Procurement action, referred to as lots:
Each lot include three sub-challenges (plus a wild card) that the suppliers can try to solve with their solution.
The purpose of the sub-challenges is to describe and give examples of the cities’ current needs. It is not expected that a solution would cover every issue mentioned under a sub-challenge.
Performance of the R&D mainly in Europe. Testing of prototypes developed will be tested in Helsinki, Tallinn, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Ile-de-France (Paris Region) and Stavanger.
The Europe-wide challenge-based pre-commercial procurement (PCP) focuses on radical innovation and is meant for services, tools or products that are not yet on or close to the market that support the buyers group transition to carbon neutrality via AI and related enabling digital technologies. Two key domains linked to the cities’ strategies and emission goals have been selected to be sub-challenges of the PCP actions, which are:
The Request for tenders (RfT) will be launched at the beginning of December 2020. Each selected supplier will be awarded a framework agreement that covers three R&D phases. A total procurement budget of EUR 4 666 630 is allocated to this PCP to be distributed among the 3 phases.
1) Phase 1 (solution design) will focus on the feasibility of the proposed solutions. It aims to verify their conceptual, technological, organisational, regulatory, safety and budgetary feasibility. The expected output from participating companies is a report and presentation. There will also be a description of the results of their feasibility studies and their conclusions to the continuation of the development activities in Phase 2.
2) Phase 2 (prototyping) consists of a first prototype development and will last 4 months. It will focus on a strong collaboration between the buyers group and the suppliers. Phase 2 foresees the awarding of 10 contracts per lot.
3) In Phase 3 (piloting) a limited number of suppliers from Phase 2 will be selected for the testing of prototypes in real-life pilots. It is intended to verify and compare the full feature set and performance of each solution, in operational conditions and provide meaningful feedback for the suppliers to their prototype’s continuous development. Phase 3 foresees the awarding of 3 contracts per lot. The piloting phase has a duration of 6 months and the solutions will be tested at least in two of the buyers group cities.
The number of suppliers reduces with each phase and the same time funding per supplier will increase within each phase.
Lot 1: Smart mobility includes three sub-challenges (plus a wild card) that the suppliers can try to solve with their solution.
Within these sub-challenges, cities describe and give examples of their cities’ current needs. It is not expected that a solution would cover every issue mentioned under a sub-challenge. However, if a solution solves only one of the issues listed, it may not be enough for the solution to advance to the later phases of the PCP.

Eligibility requirements: The process to award the framework agreements and the specific contracts is based on four main categories: The exclusion criteria: evaluate the individual situation of a tenderer; The selection criteria: determine whether a tenderer has the financial, technical and professional capacity necessary to carry out and perform the work; The complience criteria: evaluate if the submitted tender is compliance with the principles of PCP, public financing, place of performance, research integrity and security; The award criteria: award contracts to the best ranked tenders. The final award will be made based on the most economically advantageous tender (MEAT), based on the best quality price ratio.

Award value: 4666630