There has never been such an investment in AI in Poland. Even PLN 5 billion of the budget

• - Poland will take part in the European AI Gigafactory program - says Deputy Minister of Digital Affairs Dariusz Standerski . By 2029, 30,000 GPU cards, i.e. components optimized to work with AI, are to be installed in our country.
• Poland is to be the leader of the consortium, consisting of several countries. Arrangements are underway to determine who exactly will join it.
• The expenditure of the Polish side is estimated at 1.5 to 2 billion euros. As the deputy minister assures, the matter has already been consulted with the Ministry of Finance.

Poland wants to build its own Artificial Intelligence Gigafactory. This is part of a European project, such investments are to be made in seven EU countries. - We have already submitted the application in the working mode to the European Commission. We are finalizing the last talks with our partners in the region. We will submit the official application by June 20 - says the CIS Deputy Minister of Digital Affairs Dariusz Standerski.

A large computing center may be built in Poland

The entire budget of the project is to amount to as much as PLN 5 billion. The ministry plans for PLN 2.5 billion to come from Polish funds and EU funding. The rest is to be provided by partners. Standerski assures that the matter was consulted with the Ministry of Finance.

As part of the AI ​​Gigafactory, 30,000 GPU cards are to be delivered to Poland - these are special processors designed initially to handle graphics (e.g. in computer games), but today also used in other applications, especially in artificial intelligence and scientific calculations. EuroHPC JU - the EU unit that currently runs the AI ​​Factories project - is to be responsible for announcing the tender. Let us recall - one of them will be located in Poznań. The project is to be implemented in 2026-2029.

Several Countries, But One AI Gigafactory

For now, the project is at the stage of arrangements between the member states and the European Commission. It is to be known by June 20 who exactly will join the consortium together with Poland.

- We are considering various configurations - admits Standerski. In each of them, Poland is to become the leader. It is known, for example, that one of the options is for the consortium to be joined not by countries alone, but by specific academic centers or companies.

The AI ​​gigafactory project, however, has many question marks. One of them is how the computing centers will be managed. - One option is a company managing the gigafactory. In this variant, the partners would have as much of a share in the computing power as they contributed. The second option is that the parties that contribute to the factory treat it as a prepaid investment - explains Standerski.

Several distributed centers will facilitate project management

If the project is successful, the computing center will be located in Poland. As the deputy minister says, it will consist of several dispersed centers.

This way we will spend more on cards and less on walls, says Standerski.

The AI ​​gigafactory project is part of a plan presented by the European Commission in April. It is the result of the disproportion in AI development between Europe, the US and China. The Old Continent has fallen far behind other centres.

The five planned pillars of action include investments in AI factories and gigafactories, as well as actions to simplify the recently adopted regulations on artificial intelligence. The EC would like to build five to seven gigafactories.