Eggward @luckydog ·
Poland could become Europe’s next AI powerhouse
Polish entrepreneur Piotr Surma once wondered whether he should move his AI startup from Warsaw to Silicon Valley. Today, he no longer has that concern.
An AI boom is taking shape in Poland, and Surma is far from the only one betting on it. As U.S. hyperscalers pour money into the country’s AI infrastructure and Polish talent begins returning home from jobs in the United States, investors are likely to see a growing number of opportunities emerge.
Poland could become Europe’s next major AI powerhouse.
“We are seeing people come back to Poland from Silicon Valley,” said Surma, founder and CEO of Warsaw-based biotech and AI startup Ingenix.ai.
His company has already managed to recruit Polish talent that once left for the United States. It continues to receive applications from candidates with AI-related degrees and product experience at major technology companies.
And the momentum is not being driven by the private sector alone.
Poland Wants to Become the Heart of Europe’s AI Economy
The Polish government has laid out a series of AI priorities, including a goal of increasing venture-capital investment in artificial intelligence by 50% by 2030 and positioning the country, through business innovation and investment, as the “heart of Europe’s AI continent.”
“Poland will emerge on the international stage as a major exporter of safe and trustworthy AI products and services,” the government said in an AI policy memorandum published in June 2025.
The broader economic backdrop is increasingly supportive.
According to Eurostat, Poland’s annual economic output surpassed $1 trillion in 2025. International Monetary Fund data currently ranks Poland as the world’s 21st-largest economy, just behind Switzerland.
Artificial intelligence could provide the next major boost.
A World Bank report published in June estimated that AI could raise Poland’s real GDP by as much as 12.1% over the next five to ten years. Much of that upside, however, is expected to come from productivity gains rather than technological breakthroughs.
Poland already has Beyond.pl, the first domestically controlled AI infrastructure platform of its kind in Central and Eastern Europe. Based in Poznań, it is powered by Nvidia computing hardware.
The government agency KRiBSI is helping coordinate the development of the country’s AI sector while supporting projects through local regulatory frameworks. At the end of July, Warsaw pledged more than $106 million in an effort to host one of the European Union’s planned AI gigafactories.
U.S. Tech Giants Are Moving In
As demand for cloud infrastructure and technology rises across Poland and Europe, American technology companies are steadily expanding their presence in the country.
Microsoft has invested $1.7 billion to expand its cloud and AI infrastructure in Poland. In 2023, it opened the country’s first hyperscale data center region near Warsaw.
“I am very confident that Poland has everything it needs to become an AI hub for Europe,” Iwona Hilar, general manager of Microsoft Poland, said in an interview.
Alphabet’s Google signed an agreement with the Polish government in February 2025 to accelerate the adoption of artificial intelligence across the country.
Amazon followed in May, announcing plans to invest more than $5 billion in Poland between 2026 and 2028. The investment includes the construction of a new AI-powered smart logistics center.
Poland’s AI market, however, remains small compared with the world’s most developed markets.
According to Data Center Map, Poland currently has 112 data centers, compared with 4,767 in the United States and 2,983 across Western Europe.
But the gap is beginning to close.
Talent Is Coming Home
New York-based investor Filip Vurdelja, formerly of BlackRock, returns to his native Poland every few months. Each time, he says, the progress is increasingly difficult to miss.
After spending nearly four years as a partner at an early-stage technology firm in New York, Vurdelja founded his own venture-capital firm, AGX, which invests in Polish startups built around advanced engineering and scientific research.
“When you come here, you realize that Poland — and Warsaw in particular — feels like one enormous construction site,” he said. “Everywhere you look, new buildings are going up. The infrastructure boom is immediately visible.”
At the same time, a younger generation is being trained in coding and technical skills.
According to Vurdelja, a new wave of Polish teenagers — some still in high school — is already launching startups of its own.
Poles returning home after working at overseas technology companies are also bringing with them valuable experience in product management, scaling and technology commercialization.
Hilar herself is Polish. After spending years living and working in Asia and Australia, she followed the path of many of her peers and returned home last year.
For investors looking for emerging AI markets such as Poland, the return of talent could become one of the country’s most important advantages.
“For investors, the opportunity is already ripe,” Pablo Rasmussen, a director at geopolitical advisory firm Brzezinski Global Strategies, said in an interview. “And compared with markets such as the United States or the Middle East, it is far less crowded.”
The Public Markets Have Yet to Catch Up
Poland’s public markets have not yet fully reflected the country’s AI momentum.
Most companies exposed to the trend remain privately held.
The Warsaw Stock Exchange has also lagged markets such as South Korea and Taiwan, where AI-related companies represent a much larger share of major equity indexes.
Year to date, Poland’s WIG index has risen roughly 30%, compared with a 62% gain for South Korea’s benchmark index and a 14% increase in the S&P 500.
For U.S. investors seeking broad exposure to Polish equities, the iShares MSCI Poland ETF is currently the only U.S.-listed exchange-traded fund focused specifically on Poland.
The passively managed fund holds companies including PKO Bank Polski, energy giant Orlen and Bank Pekao.
Polish e-commerce platform Allegro, meanwhile, completed what was at the time the largest IPO in the history of the Warsaw Stock Exchange in 2020.
“There is a very strong willingness across both the public and private sectors to adopt emerging technologies,” Hilar said. “We are already seeing world-class AI use cases in Poland, particularly in finance and energy.”
Rasmussen said investors may also be able to gain exposure through the AI supply chain.
One example is construction group Budimex, which plans to invest in, build and operate data centers in Poland.
The Next Generation of Polish AI Companies
Investors should also watch private AI companies that could potentially reach the public markets over the next five to ten years.
Some of the most prominent include ElevenLabs, an AI audio company with a large U.S. customer base; Nomagic, which builds robots designed to automate warehouse operations; and Synerise, an AI platform used to analyze and track behavioral data.
These companies point to a broader shift.
Poland is no longer merely a source of engineering talent for Western European or American technology companies. Increasingly, it is becoming a place where ambitious technology businesses are being built, financed and scaled locally.
The Risks Are Real
The opportunity is not without constraints.
The World Bank has warned that structural challenges could limit the “scale, speed and inclusiveness” of AI development in Poland.
AI adoption also remains relatively low. Only around 8% of Polish companies currently use artificial intelligence.
“The challenge is not access to AI, but how effectively the technology is used,” said Ary Naïm, World Bank Group country manager for Poland.
That means greater investment will be needed in the infrastructure and skills that support long-term growth, including digital networks, energy, water systems and education.
In other words, Poland may have the talent, capital inflows and political ambition required to build a major AI ecosystem, but it will still need to turn those advantages into broad-based adoption.
An Opportunity the Market May Still Be Underestimating
Despite the risks, expectations remain high.
“There are not many places today that offer a better opportunity to build than Poland,” Vurdelja said. “Poland’s success has gone unnoticed for years.”
That may now be changing.
With a trillion-dollar economy, returning technical talent, growing government support, major investments from U.S. technology companies and a still relatively uncrowded startup ecosystem, Poland is beginning to assemble the ingredients of a serious AI economy.
Silicon Valley will remain the center of gravity for global artificial intelligence for the foreseeable future.
But in Europe, the next major AI hub may be taking shape much farther east.
In Warsaw, Poznań and across Poland, the foundations are already being built.
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