Poland is officially joining the European race in artificial intelligence. The Gaia AI Factory, an investment of nearly PLN 300 million, was inaugurated in Krakow, Poland, which is set to become the foundation for a new generation of language models and breakthrough solutions in key sectors of the economy.
The project, led by the Academic Computer Centre Cyfronet at AGH in collaboration with a consortium of research institutions, is a strategic step towards building technological sovereignty. The project is funded in equal parts by the Polish government and the European Union under the EuroHPC JU programme. As a result, Kraków is becoming one of nineteen European centres equipped with advanced infrastructure for the development of artificial intelligence.
At the heart of the Kraków facility will be a powerful supercomputer, scheduled to be launched in the second half of 2027. The machine will be equipped with more than a thousand GPUs divided into partitions for training and inference. This configuration will allow it to surpass the computing power of the Helios system, the current leader in Poland, many times over. The powerful infrastructure is essential for training advanced algorithms used in personalised medicine, environmental protection, public services or satellite data analytics.
What is particularly important from a business point of view, access to the Gaia AI infrastructure will not be restricted to the scientific community only. The new centre is expected to actively support entrepreneurs, startups and public administrations. The offer will include not only raw computing power, but also consultancy, training and assistance in implementing ready-made tools. For many Polish companies, this means the facilitation of research and development processes, a reduction in prototyping costs and a real chance to compete with global players.
Gaia AI Factory is also an important part of the wider European innovation ecosystem. The Kraków facility will work closely with the emerging PIAST factory in Poznań and the powerful Finnish supercomputer LUMI. In addition, integration with the national PLGrid network will provide a seamless backbone for Polish science and industry. The expansion of indigenous infrastructure – which also includes the recently launched NASK cluster in Warsaw – is a clear signal that Poland is building a solid foundation for developing its own artificial intelligence-based solutions.
