Romanian IT enters 2026 with revving engines: investments in AI, security and infrastructure, estimated growth of up to 20%

2025 was the year that technology became a visible driver of productivity in our daily lives. Some changes are already palpable: time lost on the roads, endless queues and operational errors have started to decrease, but the full implementation of the solutions remains a challenge for the new year. Thus, 2026 is shaping up to be the year of maturation of the IT sector: not only spectacular investments, but also concrete results for people, companies and the economy, and those who will follow the correct numbers will quickly understand if the market is going in a sustainable and profitable direction.

The reality of 2025 has shown that the impact of technology is most clearly seen in non-tech industries, where digital directly affects operational costs and customer experience. “In retail and online commerce, the consumer especially felt faster delivery, better tracking and more self-service. The e-commerce market in Romania was estimated at around USD 8 billion, and the pressure on delivery pushed significant investments in routing and tracking technology”, says for “Weekend Adevărul” Alexandru Dan, professor of AI at the Academy of Economic Studies (ASE) in Bucharest. These investments have had tangible effects: increasing the speed of delivery and reducing operational errors have translated into direct satisfaction for customers and efficiency for companies.

In the public sector, digitization was more than a trend: it became a necessity. Automating processes through e-Invoicing reduced errors by 36% and shortened processing times by 31%. “These numbers are not just statistics, they translate into fewer corrections, late payments and time saved in the back-office,” emphasizes the teacher. At the same time, digital payments experienced an important expansion: their Romanian market reached USD 38.31 billion, with mobile applications that allow instant, secure and automatically monitored transactions.

Operationally, the impact of IT and AI has been seen where processes are repetitive and quantifiable. “Real productivity increased in customer support and operations, triage, summarization, assisted responses, software engineering, test generation, bug analysis, documentation and document processing, invoices, claims, compliance”adds Alexandru Dan. In contrast, at the macro level, there is a statistical illusion: many investments in infrastructure, reorganization or training are not immediately reflected in productivity, and the effects appear late and are only partially measured.

Another important dimension is the technology we use every day: card or phone payments, fast logins, password recoveries or anti-fraud systems. “We use digital services every day that seem mundane, but behind them are years of investment in cloud, security, data, networks, software and, increasingly, AI. Google search, recommendations from YouTube or TikTok, personalized ads, all are ranking and recommendation systems trained on huge volumes of data. Here AI decides what you see, in what order and how quickly you get a relevant result”claims Alexandru Dan.

The importance of the IT market for the Romanian economy is also quantifiable at the GDP level: the direct contribution is 6.67%. But the real impact is seen in everyday life. “When you pay a toll or fine online in minutes, instead of wasting half a day on the roads, this is the technology that saves real time for people and money for institutions”emphasizes the entrepreneur.

Technology among big companies

Looking ahead to 2026, Alexandru Dan recommends companies pursue three major directions: direct impact on productivity and costs, solid foundation in data, integration and security, and investment in AI infrastructure with clear control of total cost of use. The trends of 2025 continue in 2026, the specialist claims: investments in servers, cloud and data centers, solutions based on AI and security platforms for AI. Emphasis is placed on digital provenance and the localization of technology and data under geopolitical constraints. In parallel, we will see more “AI in products”not just internal projects.

On a local level, Romania remains attractive: the top IT school and international level programmers enable the development of complex projects for European and American companies. Alexandru Dan forecasts a 10-20% growth of the IT industry in 2026. “I am very optimistic that Romania will attract complex development projects and investments in work teams for companies from Europe and the USA”adds Alexandru Dan.

For his part, Alexandru Gheorghe, specialist consultant in the field of Data Protection, Cyber ​​Security, is of the opinion that the digital transformation continues to redefine traditional industries, not only the IT sector, in the coming period. “In the last two years, I was present at the “Go Tech” technology fair, organized in Bucharest in November. I noticed that certain companies specialized in the supply of energy, for example, no longer call themselves just electricity or natural gas suppliers; now they are technology companies. The same is the case with telecommunications companies, which no longer offer telephone services and that’s all. Moreover, the investments of the big players of the local industries in innovation and research indicate that the potential of our capital is to become a tech innovation hub, brought to light by these industries that understand that they need to diversify. I think this trend will continue in 2026.” he says.

The digital, the good brother of the Economy

The specialist emphasizes that companies’ attention should be focused on the real value that technology brings and how it optimizes costs or increases revenues. “Of course, I orient my point of view in the framework in which I operate, so attention to the legislative changes announced at the level of the European Union starting from March 2026, namely the initiative called “Digital Omnibus”, which simplifies the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and the AI Act Regulation, must remain at the center of the companies’ perspective. However, I specify the importance of the direct link between the economic value of technology and the cost it reduces; in 2026, I anticipate that the question will no longer be “what technology does it reduce, what risk does it control or what does it accelerate”. The impact that the technology produces must be measurable, which means that organizations will primarily look to the contractual possibilities of ending collaborations if the technologies do not deliver the expectations set by the vendors. In the year 2026, smart investments include compliance as a competitive advantage, because, in despite the trend, my opinion is that regulation will not slow down next year. However, access to large markets will be simplified, and contracts will include fewer blockages, precisely to encourage interested partners to collaborate.”

To explain the importance of IT in accessible language, Alexandru Gheorghe offers a simple but illustrative analogy: “IT and digital services bring to Romania’s economy 1 lei out of every 10 lei produced. Let’s think about a hospital in an average city: even if the main object of activity is not “IT”, its operation depends on programs that keep records of employees and taxes, systems that automatically order materials or medicines, applications that plan shifts (guards), transport and maintenance. In other words, without IT, salaries are delayed, supplies are blocked, the activity stops even if people are present at work. Why does all this matter to a parent or a grandparent? Because the IT industry is no longer a field for young people who have access to a computer, but an invisible infrastructure that keeps the economy moving, just as electricity or roads provide the daily functionality of our lives! “