Abstract
The three years HeliX project aims to bring privacy-preserving artificial intelligence for health data from advanced development to real-world deployment, enabling secure and trusted secondary use of sensitive health data without transferring it from data holders. By applying federated learning approaches, HeliX improves access to high-quality data for research, innovation and decision-making, while overcoming fragmentation, interoperability challenges and regulatory barriers that currently limit the use of health data across Europe.
HeliX targets the health data value chain by developing and validating federated AI technologies that support data sovereignty and full compliance with European data protection frameworks. This approach addresses a critical bottleneck in European healthcare innovation, namely the fragmentation of health data combined with strict regulatory constraints on data sharing. By enabling advanced analytics and machine learning without centralising data, HeliX strengthens trust, security and ethical data use while unlocking new opportunities for scalable innovation in healthcare, life sciences and digital health.
HeliX brings together 14 partners from nine EU regions, including SMEs, technology providers, healthcare organisations, research centres and cluster organisations across Portugal, Italy, Hungary and Poland. Activities are implemented in less developed, transition and more developed regions, delivering benefits such as SME integration into European value chains, pilot deployments, capacity building and investment readiness, tailored to the needs and strengths of each region.
HeliX is implemented across 7 regional ecosystems in Portugal, Italy, Hungary and Poland, combining less developed, transition and more developed territories. The core regional focus includes Norte, Centro and Madeira (Portugal), Campania (Italy), Western Transdanubia (Hungary), and more developed regions around Budapest (Hungary) and Warsaw (Poland).
Across regions, the partnership brings together SMEs and technology providers, healthcare data holders (hospitals and labs), research and innovation organisations, and intermediaries such as clusters and innovation agencies. Cooperation is built on complementary Smart Specialisation priorities, notably life sciences and health, biotechnologies and human health, healthtech and digital health, and broader digital transformation agendas.
For Less Developed and Transition Regions, HeliX delivers concrete improvements by enabling access to federated AI infrastructure, supporting data onboarding and interoperability, piloting real-world use cases, and accelerating SME participation and investment readiness through cascade funding and business support.
The consortium also builds on prior collaboration and related initiatives, including federated learning deployments in Hungary, European scale-up pathways, and synergies with projects such as AI4EOSC, TRUMPET, IDEA4RC and ASCAPE.
HeliX is developing a platform and service innovation: a market-ready health-data platform that allows organisations to train and deploy AI models on distributed clinical, laboratory and imaging datasets without moving sensitive data. This is complemented by process innovations for secure data onboarding, governance, interoperability and privacy-preserving analytics, enabling faster and more trusted secondary use of health data across multiple healthcare ecosystems.
In technology terms, the project advances the HeliX Platform from TRL 6 to TRL 9, moving from a validated solution in a relevant environment to a fully deployable, commercial-grade platform and service for the healthcare domain.
HeliX aligns strongly with EU digital transition priorities by strengthening data sovereignty, secure data sharing, interoperability and trustworthy artificial intelligence, supporting innovation in healthcare and life sciences. It also contributes to the green transition by reducing unnecessary data replication and transfers, enabling more efficient use of existing data infrastructures.
Replication and scaling are supported through multi-region pilots, standardised onboarding and deployment approaches, reusable technical components, and cascade funding mechanisms that help SMEs integrate solutions into the value chain.
The project addresses clear market needs: compliant access to high-quality health data for research and innovation, faster generation of real-world evidence, and scalable AI adoption in regulated environments.
HeliX focuses on preparing and enabling investment-ready digital health services and platforms rather than single physical pilots. The core investment asset is the HeliX Platform, developed as a commercially deployable service supporting federated health data analytics across Europe.
Demonstration and validation activities are implemented across participating regions, involving hospitals, research centres and private companies as real-world users and service providers. Private partners lead platform development, deployment and commercialisation, while research organisations and healthcare institutions contribute domain expertise, validation use cases and data governance frameworks.
The project will create new revenue-generating value chains in (1) digital research and analytics services for pharmaceutical and life science companies and (2) interoperable digital services for healthcare systems. By the end of the project, HeliX aims to deliver a scalable, market-ready platform capable of attracting follow-on public and private investment and supporting Europe’s leadership in secure, AI-driven healthcare innovation.