Romania needs to think about strategies to attract investments in AI data centers, which are essential in the process of national digitalization, said Radu Dudău, President and co-founder of Energy Policy Group.
“If Romania wants to be part of the artificial intelligence revolution, it needs to understand that this is not just a technological change, but a fundamental transformation of the way the digital economy works. Since 2022, with the meteoric success of ChatGPT, a clear paradigm has been imposed: ‘bigger is better’, i.e. computing power directly influences the capacity of generative AI models,” said Dudăuat the DigitALL 2025 conference organised by Energynomics.
The US already operates data centres with more than 5 GW of capacity, the equivalent of eight nuclear power plants such as the one at Cernavodă. These centres contain hundreds of thousands of Nvidia processors and state-of-the-art AI models. In this context, Romania has to decide which direction it wants to take: which processors it will use, which AI models it will adopt and, crucially, which investors it wants to attract. The European Union is trying to create a competitive framework, but at the moment it is mainly offering funding and general guidelines. The US, by contrast, until recently had a formal framework whereby a limited number of countries had unfettered access to American AI technology. Countries like Switzerland, Poland and Singapore were on the list, but not Israel or some Gulf states. This framework was abolished by the Trump administration, replaced by direct bilateral negotiations.
“In this context, Romania needs to clearly define what it has to offer. Unfortunately, we are not among the most attractive candidates in the EU. The Scandinavian countries offer abundant renewable energy and low temperatures (ideal for cooling equipment). The Iberian Peninsula benefits from renewables and energy stability. Germany and the Netherlands have high demand. An advantage of AI is that the training phase does not depend on location but on proximity to energy sources. Therefore, Romania could become competitive if it prioritises the field as a strategic public policy priority. Without state involvement, we cannot keep up,” Radu Dudău said.
He added that Romania also needs to manage geopolitical issues, its relationship with the US and its positioning within the EU in order to access the funds mobilized. In the EU, the current beneficiaries are the existing supercomputing centers, and other countries are moving faster than Romania. Within the EPG there is a working group developed with the energy ministry, which brings the IT sector, energy companies and digital service providers to the same table. Although the group is not yet large, important players from both sectors are involved. But after the first meetings, there is a discrepancy in perception: energy companies understand digitalization through the prism of operational needs (e.g. battery integration, network optimization), while big tech companies like Google or Microsoft start straight from the cloud and advanced solutions.
“They don’t understand why the energy sector is not more responsive, even when free training sessions are offered. This difference in vision needs to be corrected if energy and technology are to work together effectively. Romania needs to align itself with the pace of global change, otherwise we risk missing major strategic opportunities,” Dudău added.
The “DigitALL 2025” conference was organised by Energynomics, in partnership with reputed organisations such as the CIO Council and EPG, with the support of our partners: ABB, Corning, Datacor, Eaton Electric, Enevo Group, Enevo Group, Procesio, Renomia, script.ai, Sunwire, Vertiv.