Romania’s “Palantir”: the entrepreneur selling “sovereign AI” to the country’s intelligence services

A Cluj-Napoca-based tech firm is quietly supplying advanced artificial-intelligence tools to Romania’s most sensitive state institutions – the Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI), the Protection and Guard Service (SPP), and the Ministry of National Defence (MApN). The company, ZA Cloud SRL, trades under the brand Zetta (also known as Zetta Critical AI or Zetta Cloud) and is frequently described in Romanian media as the country’s home-grown equivalent of the controversial U.S. data-analytics giant Palantir. Yet its co-founder and chief strategist, George Bara, has a documented past in far-right nationalist circles that he now downplays or denies.

Zetta specialises in “sovereign AI” — systems that process data entirely on local servers, ensuring that sensitive information never leaves Romanian territory. The company claims its software is used for critical missions including open-source intelligence, social-media monitoring, cyber-threat detection, automatic speech recognition, translation and disinformation tracking. According to public procurement records, Zetta has secured several contracts with security institutions in recent years:

A 2024 contract worth nearly 500,000 lei (approximately €100,000) with MApN’s military-research agency.
Multiple agreements with the SRI’s Advanced Technologies Institute.
2025 contracts with the SPP totalling 54,000 lei for AI-module support and server integration.
Ongoing work since 2022 with the National School of Political and Administrative Studies (SNSPA).

The firm’s turnover has exceeded one million lei in several recent years and it has also won a small European Defence Fund grant as part of a multinational consortium and a Google Digital News Initiative award. Bara has even told Romanian media that Zetta has supplied AI systems to the U.S. Pentagon, though details remain classified.

On paper, Bara, 42, presents himself as a polished AI entrepreneur with 20 years in software and 12 focused on applied intelligence. He sits on 27.9 % of ZA Cloud and is responsible for strategy, sales and partnerships. The company also runs Stirili.ro, a news-aggregation site that draws from a mix of mainstream and partisan outlets, some known for spreading disinformation.

Yet two decades ago, Bara moved in very different circles. In 2005, local newspapers identified him as president of the Bihor county branch of Noua Dreaptă (“New Right”), a neo-Legionary organisation inspired by Romania’s interwar Iron Guard – a fascist movement notorious for anti-Semitism, xenophobia and political violence. Bara was also head of the group’s national “Internet Department” and “Students Department.” Contemporary reports describe him organising propaganda actions, including the posting of posters in Oradea commemorating the birthday of Iron Guard founder Corneliu Zelea Codreanu. He participated in the organisation’s 2005 work camp and held leadership roles until at least 2007.

Around the same period and into the early 2010s, Bara served as editor-in-chief of NapocaNews, a Cluj-based nationalist and conspiratorial online portal. Articles under his name or editorial oversight compared Hungarian cultural events in Transylvania to the 1940 massacres carried out by Hungarian troops in Ip and Trăznea. He criticised the Hungarian Cultural Days in Cluj as a “money vacuum” and made derogatory remarks about Hungarian language and culture. Some of those texts were later cited approvingly by Dan Tănasă, a current MP from the far-right AUR party.

When confronted by PressOne journalists, Bara claimed he had “no memory” of his Noua Dreaptă involvement and suggested possible name confusion, despite matching biographical details (including his studies at the Faculty of Computers in Timișoara). He minimised his NapocaNews role, denied any xenophobic content and said he had Hungarian colleagues. He also accused the investigative outlet of running a “lynching” campaign.

Bara has tried to distance himself from that past while embracing new credentials. In 2021 he participated in an EU-funded project against online political radicalisation alongside NGOs such as ActiveWatch – organisations he later dismissed as “Soros-linked.” He has positioned Zetta as a defender of national sovereignty in the AI age, arguing that local data processing protects Romania from foreign influence.

The episode highlights a broader tension in Romania and across Europe: the rapid growth of domestic AI firms that win sensitive government contracts while their founders’ earlier ideological baggage remains largely unexamined. For now, Zetta continues to expand its footprint inside Romania’s security apparatus. Whether the country’s intelligence services have fully vetted the personal history of the man selling them “sovereign AI” is a question that remains open.

The original of this journalistic investigation in Romanian by EUalive’s partner PressOne ca be found here.

Caption: Undated photo of George Bara published by PressOne.