What it is
Romanian AI Days is the yearly gathering of Romania’s artificial-intelligence community. The organisers are researchers from Romanian universities and from companies such as Bitdefender, Google DeepMind and NVIDIA. Their stated aim is to give everyone interested in AI a place to learn and network, from beginners to experts, and to connect the Romanian AI community with the international one. The event moves between university cities: Brașov in 2020, Iași in 2021, Oradea in 2022, Brașov again in 2023, Bucharest in 2024 and Iași in 2025. The 2026 edition was held on 18 and 19 September in the PRECIS building of Politehnica Bucharest.
How the programme works
The event runs over two days. It has research keynotes, industry keynotes, round tables on community, public policy and start-ups, and a poster session for junior researchers. In 2026 the research speakers included Petar Veličković of Google DeepMind and the University of Cambridge. The industry talks came from Adobe, Bitdefender, eMAG and UiPath. A satellite workshop on the European Language Data Space was held in the same building on 17 September, for people working on language technology.
The Best Romanian AI Thesis Awards (BRAIT) run alongside. Now in their third edition, they have separate tracks for bachelor’s, master’s and PhD theses defended at a Romanian university. The best entries are presented at the event, and the prizes include scholarships to the EEML summer school.
Who goes and how to take part
The audience is researchers, engineers, students and some industry practitioners. Registration in 2026 cost EUR 100, or EUR 25 for students. Poster presenters register free, subject to selection; the 2026 poster deadline was 8 September. The 2025 edition in Iași charged in lei (300 RON general) and offered travel grants to poster presenters who needed them.
Why it matters for cities
This is not a smart-city event. It is useful to city officials and university cities in another way. It shows where Romania’s AI research is done and who does it, and it holds round tables on public policy. It has been hosted by four university cities so far: Iași, Brașov, Oradea and Bucharest.
Going, or following from home
The 2026 edition is over, and the 2027 host city and dates have not been announced. The organisers publish each edition’s programme as a shared Google Calendar and keep pages for past editions on the same site.