Takeaways from Data Center Forum 2025

Data Center Forum 2025

PAC attended the 7th Data Center Forum edition, the largest data center, artificial intelligence and cloud event hosted in Bucharest. The event is powered by Tema Energy, the leading designer and builder of data centers in Romania.

Context

The discussions were grounded in a broader geopolitical and strategic context, namely, the Trump administration’s desire to dominate the artificial intelligence race and the opportunities this presents for Europe and Romania. Efforts are focusing on creating and developing regional and European champions in the field of AI, with the EU announcing €200 billion for investment, as well as a fund of €20 billion for AI Gigafactories, large-scale facilities dedicated to the development and training of next-generation large-language models, processes and applications. While the United Kingdom and France assume leadership, there are emerging markets such as Italy, Norway, Poland and Greece that have announced large investments in both cloud data centers and AI-focused infrastructure of hundreds of megawatts.

The Romanian Data Center Market

Mihai Manole, Chairman of the Board and CEO of Tema Energy, offered several interesting insights in this context. Romania’s data center market is witnessing a clear upward trajectory—not at the fastest pace, but steadily and with determination. The local market currently hosts 59 cloud and colocation data rooms and data centers, a figure relevant to the region, marked by steady geographic distribution yet low installed power capacity. As a comparison, Poland boasts 83 such locations, the Czech Republic with 47, Ukraine with 37, Bulgaria with 30, Hungary with 15, Slovakia and Serbia with 13 and Moldova with 6.

Romania is emerging as an attractive destination for data center investments, driven primarily by its sizeable population, geographic scale, and well-developed transport and communication infrastructure in Bucharest and its surroundings. At the same time, Romania boasts the largest discovered natural gas reserve in the region, set to be exploited starting 2026. This will directly support the development of 2,000 megawatts of gas-to-power capacity through plants designed to convert natural gas into electricity. Last but not least, supported by the state and EU funding, Romania has 55 gigawatts of wind, solar and nuclear capacity announced or under development, including small modular reactors, which are expected to provide Romania with a strategic advantage in terms of energy stability and competitive pricing.

In order to attract investments in the emerging AI Data Center sector, the Romanian Government needs to create national policies and provide a clear framework, ensure long-term political and fiscal predictability as well as fast and simplified authorization processes, particularly for energy grid connection and physical construction. Romania boasts several locations suitable for the development of large-scale data centers, thanks to their proximity to green energy production sites. This translates into competitive electricity pricing and a cleaner, more sustainable energy mix, factors that are expected to spark the interest of international investors. According to national statistics, green energy generation will continue to grow. PPC Energy, for example, announced that in 2024 it had an installed power of 700 megawatts, with plans to increase this to 1,300 megawatts in 2025 and expand it further to over 2,000 megawatts by 2026.

Bucharest (and its surrounding area) is the most developed region, a hub for data center development. According to “Knight Frank”, an independent real estate consultancy, in the next three years, Bucharest will more than double its current data center infrastructure to 50 megawatts.

The needs and challenges of the Romanian IT services market

According to Florin Popa, Orange Business Director, there has been a visible surge in activity in the past 12 to 18 months, with an acceleration in demand for both Infrastructure-as-a-Service, Platform-as-a-Service as well as colocation services. There is an increasing number of use cases for Edge Computing as customers increasingly require proximity to their users. Large enterprises, which make up the majority of Orange Business’ portfolio, have an increasing demand for renewable energy as part of their sustainability goals, making the provision of green energy a specific and growing need in current times. One challenge the company is encountering is in scaling capacity, particularly installed power and providing more power per rack for customers.

Artificial intelligence is not seen as a main challenge in the coming years, as the local needs will remain focused on traditional business-to-business needs (e.g., compute solutions for applications, back-up solutions, disaster recovery). The growing local demand is driven by the need for low-latency and compliance, particularly in data sovereignty. Industries must have greater control over how data is stored, processed, and accessed, increasing the demand for local data centers, especially in the financial sector, utilities, and the public sector. Vodafone Business is investing in its sovereign cloud capabilities in preparation for when this demand will grow, as it will act as a differentiator in the market.

In conclusion, PAC believes that Romania has the potential and the mix of resources (connectivity, renewable energy, skilled workforce) to become a key player in the data center market. However, this growth is contingent on the political backing to remove bureaucratic hurdles and implement a clear, supportive policy for data center investments. Additionally, Romania must enhance its visibility to international investors. Unfortunately, ongoing political instability and the uncertain future may undermine the country’s credibility on the global stage, potentially delaying the realization of such projects.