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The European Commission is currently planning a European tender for AI gigafactories; companies from outside the European Union will also be able to take part in it, said Deputy Minister of Digital Affairs Dariusz Standerski to the Polish Press Agency. He emphasized that Poland is not giving up on the Baltic gigafactory, but Estonia and Latvia have withdrawn from the project.
In February this year, the head of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen announced that an EU fund would finance five artificial intelligence gigafactories in the European Union, which are to be designed to deploy very large models and AI applications on an unprecedented scale. The creation of the gigafactories depends on regulations currently being worked on by the European Commission. In June, Poland as leader, together with Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, and companies and scientific institutions from these countries, created the Baltic AI GigaFactory consortium. The application for the Baltic gigafactory was accepted by the European Commission in July, and in November the Czech Republic joined the consortium.
“Work on the regulations in the European Commission is still ongoing, but the rules for building gigafactories will certainly change, because the Commission has decided to change its perspective and withdraw from the original arrangements,” Deputy Minister of Digital Affairs Dariusz Standerski told the Polish Press Agency (PAP). As he noted, the rules drawn up at the beginning of this year envisaged a competition in which member states were to participate together with consortia, that is, interested business and scientific organizations. The Commission is now planning, however, a European tender.
“So in the same way that the European Union buys office supplies, it will also buy artificial intelligence gigafactories. This means that after the tender is announced, only companies will apply to build the gigafactories, and they will be evaluated according to pre-established rules. In the end, a list with the results will be announced, which is standard in tenders organized in Poland as well. Consortia of several companies will also be able to apply for the tender to build a single gigafactory in a given country,” explained the deputy minister.
When asked what this means for the Baltic gigafactory project, Standerski said that the Ministry of Digital Affairs is not giving up. “We will continue to support not only the Baltic gigafactory consortium, but all companies that want to apply for the European tender. I have a meeting scheduled with entrepreneurs from the consortium, as well as with representatives of locations in Poland that have applied to the project. The gigafactory project office at the Ministry of Digital Affairs is still operating. We are not ending anything here; we will participate in this process,” assured the deputy head of the ministry.
He added that the Czech Republic and Lithuania still want to participate in the project with Poland. Estonia and Latvia, on the other hand, are currently looking for “other opportunities.”
“We have done a very large amount of work, for which I am extremely grateful. Relations between the Baltic states, Poland and the Czech Republic have become much closer, also through establishing contacts with companies. There are now more than 270 companies from various countries in the consortium (of the Baltic gigafactory – PAP), and they have started talking to each other, meeting and cooperating. So this is a tangible value,” said Standerski.
As he pointed out, according to the latest proposal from the European Commission, member states “should put up the money in advance” for a gigafactory in their country, even before the tender begins. “For now, we have information that this is to be 17.5 percent of the maximum amount that can be allocated to a gigafactory. However, we do not know what the specific calculations of the European Commission will be. There are still a lot of unknowns. At the same time, there is an expectation that member states will guarantee in advance that they have the funds,” noted the deputy head of the Ministry of Digital Affairs.
Asked whether such rules favor the richest countries in the European Union, Standerski commented that “this is definitely taking a shortcut,” which European countries “do not deserve.”
When asked whether global big techs would be allowed to participate in the European tender for gigafactories, the deputy minister replied that the ministry “does not currently find in the European Commission’s draft regulations any exclusion of companies from outside the European Union.”
The PAP interlocutor said that he “does not want to prejudge” whether the European Commission’s decision could have been influenced by big tech lobbying, because he “has not caught anyone red-handed.” “However, it is certainly a limitation of the bold vision that the European Commission still had at the beginning of this year. A vision that I considered groundbreaking, because in my opinion it was a plan for a completely new opening in terms of investment in the European Union. I was saddened to see the Commission limiting its plans, because in my opinion this is to the detriment of the further development of the European Union,” he said.
He said that Poland will continue to advocate for the creation of gigafactories within European consortia. “We will also invite other countries to support this position. However, it is the European Commission that has the legislative initiative, and that is its advantage over other institutions,” he noted.
Referring to the chances the Polish project will have after the rules change, the deputy minister assessed that “the task is now much more difficult,” but – as he assured – the Ministry of Digital Affairs “will do everything to make the offer from Poland as good as possible.” “Let me remind you that we were not given much of a chance for an artificial intelligence factory, and we are building two. So this is not the first challenge we are facing,” he concluded.
Standerski said that a meeting with representatives of the Ministry of Finance on the budget for the gigafactory is planned for early January. The European Commission’s official regulations on gigafactories are to be published in the second half of January.
According to information provided by the deputy minister of digital affairs, in the original project Poland’s contribution to the Baltic gigafactory was to amount to around 550 million euros, but not as a one-off, rather over a longer time frame – from 2027 to 2031.
The European Commission allowed for two large locations and an unspecified number of smaller “antennas.” The Ministry of Digital Affairs, meanwhile, was considering creating the first center in one of five locations in Poland: in Poznań (the main applicant is the company Beyond.pl), in Wrocław (Wrocław University of Science and Technology), in Warsaw (Interdisciplinary Centre for Mathematical and Computational Modelling of the University of Warsaw), in Kraków (Nowa Huta Przyszłości SA) and in Skawina (a town in the Małopolskie Voivodeship, the main applicant is the company Polcom). These locations were selected from 10 applications based on an analysis of, among other things, the availability of technical infrastructure on the site and access to the power grid with a capacity of at least 25 MW.
“We also looked at access to hard infrastructure, such as an airport and fire roads. We also paid attention to certificates, for example regarding energy efficiency, physical security, fiber-optic connections and so on. Out of 10 locations, 5 had already met more than half of the required parameters,” said Standerski. After the application for the Baltic gigafactory was accepted by the European Commission, the ministry was to launch a formal competition to select the first location.
Standerski also addressed residents’ concerns about noise, emissions and high water and energy consumption by data centers planned by private companies, including in the Michałowice municipality in the Mazowieckie Voivodeship. He assured that “when choosing locations for projects such as the gigafactory, efforts were made to select areas away from population centers, industrial areas or places where such infrastructure already exists and can be expanded.”
“The final decisions on building permits and environmental impact assessments in a specific location, for example on river protection, rest with local authorities such as the district governor or voivode. If there is a protest by residents and the competent authority decides that a gigafactory cannot be built in a given area, the Ministry of Digital Affairs will comply with such a decision,” assured Standerski.
In February this year, the head of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen announced that the EU InvestAI fund, with a budget of 20 billion euros, would finance five artificial intelligence gigafactories in the European Union. In June this year, 16 member states, including Poland, submitted 76 preliminary applications in this regard. Originally, the European Commission was to invite countries to submit official applications at the end of 2025.
According to the application for the Baltic AI GigaFactory, the investment was to cost 3 billion euros, or about 12.7 billion zlotys. Sixty-five percent of this amount was to come from the private sector and 35 percent from the public sector, half of which (17.5 percent) was to be provided by Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, and the other half (17.5 percent) by the European Commission.
On its website, the European Commission indicated that artificial intelligence factories are dynamic ecosystems that support innovation, cooperation and development in the field of AI. Thirteen of them are to be created in the European Union. In Poland, the first AI factory is being built at the Academic Computer Centre Cyfronet AGH in Kraków (Gaia AI Factory), and the second, called Piast-AI, is to be built in Poznań. (30.12.2025)