Romania’s Smart Labs initiative, funded through the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR), equips all Romanian high schools with intelligent laboratories that enable personalised learning and AI-driven educational tools. The initiative provides schools with digital hardware, software, and connectivity infrastructure. The intelligent labs are designed to support AI-enhanced instruction, including personalised learning pathways and data-driven teaching tools, making Romania one of the EU member states using recovery funds to build AI-ready school infrastructure at national scale.
The Smart Labs programme is part of Romania’s broader response to infrastructure gaps identified in its National AI Strategy 2024-2027, which lists digital infrastructure deficits as a key barrier to AI skills development.
Who it affects: All Romanian high school students and teachers, who gain access to technology infrastructure that supports AI-enhanced learning. The national scale of the deployment — covering all high schools — distinguishes this from pilot or selective initiatives.
What is notably missing: Smart Labs provides infrastructure but does not mandate a specific AI literacy curriculum in schools. Romanian secondary schools offer “Introduction to Machine Learning” as an optional subject rather than a compulsory one, so the infrastructure is not yet matched by a binding curriculum requirement. Teacher training to effectively use the intelligent labs is not comprehensively mandated alongside the infrastructure deployment.