Romania is among the six European countries selected to host the new AI Factories – strategic hubs dedicated to the development of artificial intelligence at European level, which is a confirmation of the direction that Romania has chosen and that I have promoted, as minister of digitalisation, energy minister Bogdan Gruia Ivan said in a Facebook post on Sunday.

RO AI Factory, a 50 million euro investment, coordinated by ICI Bucharest together with the Politehnica University of Bucharest, the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca and partners from the private and associative environment, will become a national centre of excellence in innovation and supercomputing, Ivan claims.

„The mission is clear: to transform Romanian companies from simple technology users into creators of solutions based on artificial intelligence. AI Factory Romania will provide access to high-performance computing infrastructures, training programmes and technical expertise for Romanian startups, SMEs and researchers,” the minister said in his post.

Romania will have the first national Artificial Intelligence (AI) infrastructure, with the launch of a joint project of the National Institute for Research and Development in Informatics – ICI Bucharest and the National University of Science and Technology Politehnica Bucharest, together with a consortium of academic, research and industry partners.

„Romania is among the six European countries selected in the last round of evaluation of the EuroHPC – AI Factories programme, a European initiative dedicated to the development of artificial intelligence and supercomputing centres. RO AI Factory will include the acquisition and operation of a state-of-the-art supercomputer optimised for artificial intelligence, as well as the development of a set of advanced services and infrastructures dedicated to research, business and the public sector. Priority areas of application include: production and industry, cybersecurity, life sciences, digital public services and autonomous systems. The initiative will support not only researchers and universities, but also startups, SMEs and public institutions, providing access to high-performance computing resources, data sets, software tools and training programs,” reads a press release of ICI Bucharest sent to AGERPRES on Friday.

RO AI Factory will be hosted and co-coordinated by ICI Bucharest and Politehnica Bucharest, bringing together a solid consortium of national partners from research, education and industry: the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca (UTCN), the National Institute for Research and Development for Biological Sciences (INCDSB), Transylvania IT Association (ATIT), the Research Institute for Artificial Intelligence (ICIA), the National Council of Small and Medium-sized Private Enterprises in Romania (CNIPMMR) and the Association of Digital Innovation Hubs in Romania (RoDIH).

„Through this strategic investment, Romania sits at the table of major European players in the field of artificial intelligence. Politehnica Bucharest has the tradition, expertise and human resources necessary to transform this project into an engine of scientific and economic progress. It is a unique opportunity to build here, in Romania, cutting-edge technologies that will influence the entire society,” emphasised Mihnea Costoiu, rector of Politehnica Bucharest, in his turn.

According to the same source, the selection of this project represents a continuation of the steps initiated by the vice president of the European Parliament, Victor Negrescu, who, since May, has brought together, at his invitation and that of ICI Bucharest, experts and key institutions in a national platform dedicated to Romania’s involvement in the European initiative EuroHPC – AI Factories.

Thus, Romania becomes an active part of the European network EuroHPC – AI Factories, contributing to the development of a unitary, competitive and ethical ecosystem of artificial intelligence in Europe. AGERPRES