Vienna, 23 July 2026 – From 20 to 22 July 2026, the European Agentic AI Bootcamp brought together participants from across Europe for an online training. The English-language intermediate-level training was designed for developers, researchers, businesses, public sector organisations, start-ups and SMEs who wanted not only to understand AI agents, but also to build, evaluate and integrate them into real-world workflows.
The bootcamp was jointly organised by AI Factory Austria AI:AT, HammerHAI, Gaia AI Factory and PHAROS-CY, together with Austrian Scientific Computing (ASC), High-Performance Computing Center Stuttgart (HLRS), Leibniz Supercomputing Centre (LRZ), Academic Computer Centre Cyfronet AGH, OpenACC and NVIDIA. As such, it exemplified the European vision behind the AI Factories: connecting national strengths, sharing expertise, and providing businesses, researchers and public sector organisations with accessible pathways to advanced AI capabilities.
Agentic AI refers to AI systems capable of planning and carrying out complex tasks more autonomously by combining multiple data sources, tools and intermediate steps. For organisations, this opens up new opportunities ranging from intelligent assistants and automated analysis workflows to sophisticated applications in research, industry and public administration. At the same time, it raises new challenges in system architecture, quality assurance, latency, performance, security and responsible deployment.
"Agentic AI marks the transition from individual AI tools to systems that can plan tasks, make use of context and independently support workflows. This presents enormous opportunities for organisations—but only if teams understand how these systems are built, evaluated and deployed responsibly. The European Agentic AI Bootcamp creates exactly this kind of practical learning environment."
Claudia Blaas-Schenner, Head of the AI:AT Learning Center
Practical tools for modern AI agents
The bootcamp focused on practical building blocks for modern AI agents, including Agent Skills, the Model Context Protocol (MCP), NVIDIA® NIM™, LangGraph and the NVIDIA NeMo™ Agent Toolkit. Participants learned how to develop Agent Skills, build HTTP-based MCP clients and servers, and integrate these technologies into LLM workflows orchestrated with LangGraph and the NVIDIA NeMo Agent Toolkit.
Around 250 participants from across Europe worked alongside 30 trainers, tutors and technical assistants, demonstrating the international collaboration that characterises the European AI Factory network. The practical exercises were supported by Athena, Cyfronet's supercomputer in Poland.
"Participants arrived eager to learn and left with a far deeper understanding than we had originally planned for. This clearly demonstrates the strong demand for practical bootcamps on Agentic AI."
Krishna Kalyan, Developer Advocate Engineer, NVIDIA
To conclude the programme, participants applied what they had learned in a hands-on challenge based on an existing LLM workflow. The objective was to introduce reusable design patterns that teams can adapt for their own applications, while incorporating early evaluation of quality, latency and performance.
"The AI Factories are not intended as isolated national initiatives, but as a European network. This bootcamp demonstrates in a very tangible way how collaboration across that network creates impact: we combine expertise, access to infrastructure and practical implementation to help bring AI applications into real-world use more quickly, effectively and responsibly."
Karl Kugler, Co-Lead, AI Factory Austria AI:AT
European collaboration as a competitive advantage
A key focus of the bootcamp was collaboration across multiple AI Factories. By jointly delivering the programme, the partners not only pooled technical expertise but also created a shared European environment for learning and practical collaboration. Participants gained access to knowledge from different national AI ecosystems and prepared for applications that can be further developed through future European hackathons and AI projects.
The bootcamp was specifically designed to welcome SMEs and startups. As an intermediate-level programme, it targeted participants with prior experience in AI, software development or technical workflows who wanted to deepen their expertise in AI agents.
"Agentic AI requires close integration of software architecture, computing infrastructure, tool integration and operational expertise. This is precisely where the AI Factories can create added value together: by improving access to knowledge, tools and European resources, and helping organisations make the right architectural decisions from the outset."
Markus Stöhr, Co-Lead, AI Factory Austria AI:AT
Organisers
The European Agentic AI Bootcamp was jointly organised by AI:AT, HammerHAI, Gaia AI Factory, PHAROS-CY, ASC, HLRS, LRZ, Cyfronet, OpenACC and NVIDIA.