Energy Shortages Could Stall Poland's AI Growth, Institute Warns

Poland is not betting on a single national AI capital, but on a network of seventeen specialized centers spread from Szczecin to Rzeszów. That's according to an analysis published in July 2026 by the Instytut Łączności - Państwowy Instytut Badawczy (National Institute of Telecommunications), which for the first time maps the country's AI ecosystem in detail. The authors praise this dispersal as a strength, but issue a sharp warning at the same time: without decisions on energy policy, this growth could grind to a halt.

The report, titled "Analiza potencjału ośrodków rozwijających AI w Polsce" ("Analysis of the Potential of AI Development Centers in Poland"), divides the country's map into two groups. The seven leading centers are Warsaw, Kraków, Wrocław, Poznań and the Tricity, joined from 2027 by Łódź and the Upper Silesian and Zagłębie Metropolis. These are where the largest share of computing power, R&D projects and investment capital is concentrated.

Seventeen Centers Instead of One

Warsaw serves as the digital gateway to Central and Eastern Europe, drawing on the presence of global cloud providers, the financial sector and central government administration. Kraków is developing into the country's scientific digital hub, home to the Helios supercomputer and the planned Gaia AI factory. Wrocław is focused on Industry 4.0 and deep engineering technologies, Poznań combines data processing with digital sovereignty issues, and the Tricity leverages the STOS Center and access to offshore wind power.

Alongside the seven leading centers, the report lists ten supporting hubs developing AI in niche areas: Białystok and Lublin in medical and genomic data, Szczecin in the maritime economy, Bydgoszcz and Rzeszów in heavy industry and defense, plus Gorzów Wielkopolski, Kielce, Opole, Olsztyn and Toruń. The authors stress that the strength of this model lies in functional diversity and complementary competencies between regions, rather than competition over a single central hub.

Poland's Silicon Valley is essentially the whole country - Marcin Klepacki, Director of the Department of Modeling and Data Analysis, National Institute of Telecommunications

Energy as the Bottleneck

Despite the optimistic picture of a distributed ecosystem, the report includes a clear caveat. Data centers currently account for just 1-2 percent of national electricity consumption, but forecasts point to that share rising to around 5 percent by 2030. At the current pace of investment in AI and computing infrastructure, the authors warn that energy infrastructure could become the main factor limiting further growth.

Without decisive action on power generation, grid expansion and renewable energy development, the AI market may hit persistent barriers to growth - National Institute of Telecommunications, Analysis of the Potential of AI Development Centers in Poland

This warning fits into a broader problem facing all of Europe. Power grids in many regions are already close to capacity limits, and new data centers, especially those handling large language model training, need access to stable, high grid connection capacity, which in Poland can take years to secure.

Talent Drain Across the Atlantic

The second challenge highlighted by the report is the talent drain. Europe has 30 percent more AI specialists per capita than the United States, yet a significant share of them choose to continue their careers overseas. The reasons are higher salaries, better research funding and broader growth prospects at American tech companies and research labs.

This phenomenon also affects Poland, which, despite a growing number of startups and academic centers working on AI, struggles to retain its best-educated engineers and researchers. The report's authors link this problem to the lack of a coherent national strategy for breakthrough technologies, covering both AI and quantum technologies.

What It Means for Polish Companies

For companies planning AI infrastructure investments in Poland, the report offers a practical takeaway: choosing a location for a data center or research team increasingly depends not just on the availability of human capital, but also on the local energy situation. Regions such as the Tricity, with access to offshore wind power, or Silesia, undergoing industrial transformation, could gain an edge over centers with limited grid connection capacity.

The global market context only adds to the pressure. The value of the global AI market is projected to reach $347 billion in 2026 alone, growing to $1.2 trillion within five years. At that pace of growth, any delay in expanding Poland's power grid could mean losing part of that value to countries that solve their grid connection problems faster.

The National Institute of Telecommunications plans further analytical work on the national tech ecosystem, including a strategy for quantum technologies, an area where Poland, despite having its own quantum computers, remains the only major European Union economy without a national strategy. The report's authors tie the fates of both fields, AI and quantum computing, together as pieces of the same puzzle of the country's digital sovereignty.