Romania officially began implementing the RO AI Factory project on Tuesday, September 1, with the infrastructure expected to become operational by the end of 2027, Agerpres reported. Hosted by the National Institute for Research and Development in Informatics (ICI Bucharest), the initiative will provide national computing infrastructure for developing, training, testing, and validating artificial intelligence models and applications.

The project is funded by the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU) through the Horizon-JU-EuroHPC-2025-AI call.

“We want RO AI Factory to become a meeting point for research, academia, companies, and the public sector and, most importantly, a framework in which infrastructure, expertise, and collaboration lead to concrete projects and solutions,” said ICI Bucharest general director Adrian-Victor Vevera.

As the project’s hosting entity, ICI Bucharest will house its high-performance computing infrastructure and provide technical and operational support for its installation, integration, and operation.

The project will offer access to high-performance computing resources, support for developing and training AI models, data infrastructure and services, algorithm libraries, and tools for creating responsible and trustworthy artificial intelligence. Its services will be available to universities, research organizations, startups, small and medium-sized enterprises, technology companies, industrial players, and public institutions.

RO AI Factory will place particular emphasis on helping startups and SMEs move from using existing technologies to developing their own AI products and services, ICI Bucharest said. In addition to access to infrastructure, they will receive technical expertise, training, mentoring, and support with testing and validation.

The initiative is co-coordinated by the National University of Science and Technology Politehnica Bucharest. Its consortium also includes the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, the National Institute of Research and Development for Biological Sciences, the Transilvania IT Association, the Mihai Drăgănescu Research Institute for Artificial Intelligence, the National Council of Romanian SMEs, and the Romanian Digital Innovation Hubs Association.

RO AI Factory will form part of the European network of AI factories coordinated by EuroHPC JU. Its integration into the network is expected to give Romania access to exchanges of resources, data, expertise, and good practices and create opportunities for cross-border cooperation.

The first implementation stages will involve preparing the hosting facilities and installing the hardware, followed by integrating the services and connecting them to national and European infrastructure. The service portfolio and wider ecosystem will then be expanded progressively.

irina.marica@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: Facebook/ICI București - Institutul Național de Cercetare-Dezvoltare în Informatică)