Romania Begins Building Its First National AI Factory
By Suad Seferi ·
Romania has officially started implementing RO AI Factory, a new national artificial intelligence infrastructure that will connect the country directly to Europe’s expanding network of AI-focused supercomputing centres. The project began on September 1 and will be hosted by the National Institute for Research and Development in Informatics, ICI Bucharest. It is being developed together with the National University of Science and Technology POLITEHNICA Bucharest and other academic, research and industry partners. RO AI Factory is being funded through the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking, or EuroHPC JU, under the European Union’s wider effort to give researchers, startups, companies and public institutions access to computing infrastructure capable of supporting advanced AI development. The project goes beyond simply installing a new supercomputer. ICI Bucharest says the infrastructure will support the development, training, testing and validation of artificial intelligence models and applications. Planned services include access to high-performance computing resources, data infrastructure, algorithm libraries and technical support for organisations developing AI systems. The infrastructure is expected to become operational by the end of 2027, with services introduced progressively as the hardware, technical systems and connections to European infrastructure are completed. Part of Europe's growing AI infrastructure network The Romanian project forms part of the European network of AI Factories being developed through EuroHPC. The EU has increasingly treated computing capacity as a strategic part of its AI policy. Training and running more advanced models requires significant computing resources, specialised hardware and access to large datasets, infrastructure that remains expensive for universities, startups and smaller companies to build independently. AI Factories are intended to provide that capacity through shared European infrastructure. Romania was selected as one of the countries hosting an AI Factory after ICI Bucharest and POLITEHNICA Bucharest submitted the RO AI Factory proposal. The project was announced in 2025, while the September launch marks the beginning of its formal implementation phase. ICI Bucharest will serve as the hosting entity and will be responsible for the computing infrastructure and the technical and operational support required to install, integrate and operate it. POLITEHNICA Bucharest is acting as co-coordinator and will work with the wider consortium on the services and expertise that will surround the infrastructure. The aim is to create a national environment where researchers, companies and government institutions can access computing capacity without having to build the underlying infrastructure themselves. A wider shift in the region Romania's move also adds another layer to the rapidly developing AI infrastructure map in Central and Southeastern Europe. Countries in and around the Balkans are approaching the European AI Factory network in different ways. North Macedonia, for example, is developing VEZILKA as an AI Factory Antenna. Rather than hosting an AI Factory itself, the project is designed to connect Macedonian researchers, businesses and institutions with European AI computing resources and services. AI Balkans previously reported that the initiative is also expected to support Macedonian-language technologies and national AI research capacity. Romania is taking a larger infrastructure role by hosting computing resources domestically. That distinction matters. Access to computing power has become one of the central constraints in advanced AI development. Countries with domestic infrastructure can potentially build stronger research ecosystems around universities, startups and companies while also participating directly in European cross-border projects. ICI Bucharest says RO AI Factory will allow Romanian organisations to participate more directly in exchanges of computing resources, data, expertise and technical knowledge across the European AI Factory network. From infrastructure to actual use The next test will be how widely the infrastructure is used once it becomes operational. Building the computing systems is only part of the project. Universities, research institutions and companies will also need the expertise, datasets and viable projects required to turn that capacity into useful AI applications. RO AI Factory is expected to serve research, private industry and the public sector, meaning its impact will depend partly on whether organisations outside major technology centres can make practical use of the resources being created. The first implementation stages will focus on preparing the hosting environment and installing the hardware. Integration with national and European infrastructure will follow, with full operation currently expected by the end of 2027. For Romania, the project represents a shift from accessing Europe's AI infrastructure to becoming one of the countries hosting it.