The Balkans are becoming a serious player in the global race for artificial intelligence and data center infrastructure, and one small country is leading the way – Bulgaria.
A subtle information enterprise revolution is underway in the Balkan Peninsula. Croatia just unveiled Project Pantheon, AI data center campus near Zagreb that would, if completed, represent the highest-capacity facility in the entire EU; it is also currently the largest private U.S investment in Europe. Romania is building out an 800-megawatt AI-focused data center complex and has submitted a proposal for a “Black Sea AI Gigafactory” to the European Commission. The list of projects such as these is long, as the market for European data centers and AI is projected to reach $114B by 2030, doubling from $47B in 2024. But it is Bulgaria that deserves the closest attention, not because it is the biggest player, but because it is the most strategically interesting one.
Sofia’s Intelligential Capital and Dynamic Technology Hub
In March 2025, the European High-Performance Computing Joint Undertaking selected Bulgaria to host one of only six new EU AI Factories, a program designed to give Europe sovereign computing muscle in an era of U.S.-China AI dominance. The Bulgarian project, called BRAIN++, will be built at Sofia Tech Park. At its core will be the Discoverer++ supercomputer, purpose-built for advanced AI workloads. Around it will grow a comprehensive AI hub offering services to government agencies, universities, and private companies. According to INSAIT — the Institute for Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, and Technology, which is co-leading the project — BRAIN++ is designed to be comparable in raw computing power to China’s DeepSeek and other global computation powerhouses.
Bulgaria’s case for AI leadership rests on foundations that are more solid than they first appear. The country has quietly built one of Central and Eastern Europe’s most dynamic ICT sectors, with over 80,000 technology professionals and more than 10,000 ICT companies. Sofia now ranks among Europe’s top outsourcing destinations. Bulgaria’s corporate tax rate of 10 percent, the lowest in the EU, has drawn international firms including some from the United States. Energy costs, while rising, remain well below the European average, an increasingly decisive factor as AI data centers consume power on an industrial scale.
Then there is INSAIT a world-class AI research institute staffed by researchers who have returned from top American and European universities to build something at home. INSAIT is the institutional anchor that transforms BRAIN++ from a government infrastructure project into a genuine innovation ecosystem. Its ambitions include Bulgarian-language large language models, robotics AI, and space observation systems of earth. The goal, in the words of INSAIT’s scientific director Martin Vechev, is to position Bulgaria as “a leader in Europe in the field of artificial intelligence.”
Challenges Exist, But the Path Is Achievable
There are challenges to overcome. Talented Bulgarians have spent a generation emigrating to Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom in search of opportunity that felt absent at home. Additionally, the U.S. restrictions on AI chip exports that affect Bulgaria and 17 other EU member states cast a shadow over procurement timelines and add geopolitical complexity to what might otherwise be a straightforward infrastructure story.
None of this, however, negates the fundamental shift in trajectory. What is happening in Bulgaria and across the Balkans more broadly reflects a structural reordering of European digital geography that was long overdue. The traditional FLAP-D data center markets — Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam, Paris, and Dublin — face saturation, power constraints, land scarcity, and in some cases outright development moratoriums. Capital and capacity are moving east and south, toward regions with available land, cheaper energy, improving connectivity, and governments hungry enough for investment to cut through bureaucratic inertia.
America’s Moment to Invest in Bulgaria Is Today
Bulgaria is well-positioned to be a major beneficiary of investments in AI growth and data centers. The country will translate the BRAIN++ investment into a genuine talent retention and strategic and economic growth across the country. They will ensure that the digital skills gap between Sofia’s tech elite and the rest of the country does not widen but becomes a shared prosperity with access to the technology for all.
This is the moment for Bulgarians because for too long Bulgaria has been a country of unrealized potential, its assets visible but its ambitions frustrated. Nothing is guaranteed in this world, but with BRAIN++, INSAIT, and the other AI progress already made, this is the most serious bet Bulgaria has ever placed on its own technological future. The U.S. needs to lean forward to further strengthen its public and private partnerships, and it seems the process has already begun.
Aaron J. Masaitis is a veteran of the United States Marine Corps with multiple deployments supporting U.S. forces and leading diplomatic engagements across the world. He is the CEO of a small investment and real estate company in Tampa, Florida, and a Trump 2016 campaign volunteer.
