Romania begins implementing RO AI Factory. When will the country’s first national AI infrastructure become operational?

Romania has officially started building its first national artificial intelligence infrastructure through the Romanian EuroHPC AI Factory at ICI Bucharest, or RO AI Factory. The European initiative is designed to connect the country to the wider EuroHPC ecosystem and give Romanian organizations access to high-performance computing for developing and training AI models.

ICI Bucharest will serve as the project’s hosting entity. It will house the high-performance computing infrastructure and provide the technical and operational support needed for its installation, integration and operation. Bucharest Polytechnic University will act as co-coordinator, alongside the other members of the consortium, whose complementary expertise will support the development of RO AI Factory’s services.

The project is intended to support research, innovation and the use of artificial intelligence by organizations in Romania. Its resources will be available to universities, researchers, start-ups, small and medium-sized enterprises, larger companies and public institutions. In addition to computing infrastructure, RO AI Factory will provide technical expertise, training programs, mentoring and assistance with developing and testing AI solutions, with particular attention to start-ups and SMEs.

ICI Bucharest Director General Adrian-Victor Vevera said the formal launch followed an earlier effort to build a community of organizations interested in developing and using artificial intelligence. “We want RO AI Factory to become a meeting point for research, academia, companies and the public sector and, above all, a framework where infrastructure, expertise and collaboration lead to concrete projects and solutions,” he said.

The facility will operate as part of the European network of AI Factories coordinated by the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking. ICI Bucharest said that integration into the network would allow Romania to participate directly in the European exchange of resources, data, expertise and best practices, while creating opportunities for cross-border cooperation among researchers, universities, companies and public administrations.

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We want RO AI Factory to become a meeting point for research, academia, companies and the public sector and, above all, a framework where infrastructure, expertise and collaboration lead to concrete projects and solutions.