Poland’s largest state-controlled energy group and its national cybersecurity research institute have agreed to develop a network of data centres, potentially turning parts of existing energy and former industrial sites into new computing infrastructure.
PGE Polska Grupa Energetyczna and NASK signed the agreement on 15 October during the European Forum for New Ideas in Sopot.
The agreement announced by NASK combines PGE’s electricity, land and district-heating assets with NASK’s experience in data centres, cloud computing and cybersecurity.
Deputy Prime Minister and Digital Affairs Minister Krzysztof Gawkowski presented the initiative as part of Poland’s push to strengthen domestic computing capacity and technological sovereignty.
But the announcement is the beginning of the investment process rather than a final decision to construct a specific number of facilities.
No sites have yet been formally selected, no combined investment budget has been committed publicly and no construction timetable has been approved.
Existing PGE sites could host the centres
The central idea is to build data centres on land already controlled by PGE rather than develop every facility from scratch on undeveloped sites.
PGE is one of Poland’s largest electricity and heat producers, and the Polish State Treasury holds 60.86% of its shares, giving the state majority control.
Its contribution to the programme would include potential investment land, electricity connections, energy infrastructure, district-heating expertise and experience operating critical infrastructure.
NASK is a state research institute supervised by Poland’s Digital Affairs Ministry. Its work includes cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, cloud computing and data-centre technologies.
That combination could allow computing facilities to be developed close to existing high-capacity electricity infrastructure rather than requiring entirely new connections.
State Assets Minister Wojciech Balczun said an audit will now assess potential locations.
According to Rzeczpospolita’s reporting on the programme, possible sites include brownfield land around former coal-storage areas and existing PGE heat-and-power facilities.
The first location choices are expected in the first half of 2027.
Existing infrastructure could reduce construction costs
NASK argues that building on PGE sites could make the facilities materially cheaper than conventional greenfield developments.
Its announcement says access to existing infrastructure could reduce development costs by around one-third.
The potential savings come from factors including existing electricity infrastructure and the opportunity to integrate the data centres with PGE’s heat networks.
The one-third figure is an estimate from the organisations developing the project, rather than a verified cost saving from facilities already built.
Gawkowski told Rzeczpospolita that a single data centre could typically require investment of approximately PLN 1 billion to PLN 3 billion, depending heavily on its computing and electrical capacity.
At the National Bank of Poland’s 15 October average exchange rates, that range is approximately $257 million to $770 million, or around €229 million to €687 million.
He described the eventual programme as potentially involving several billion złoty.
No total programme value has yet been fixed, however.
Number of centres remains open
Government officials are discussing multiple facilities, potentially across a wide geographic area.
Gawkowski told Rzeczpospolita that assessments could ultimately cover as many as a dozen possible locations, but stressed that the final number remains unknown.
The initial phase could involve two, three or four centres rather than development of every site examined.
NASK director Radosław Nielek similarly cautioned that the cooperation agreement is the formal start of the selection process.
Sites now need to be assessed for their economics, construction conditions, market demand, energy availability and ability to make use of the heat produced by servers.
The programme should therefore not yet be described as a confirmed network of a dozen data centres.
Server heat could feed Polish heating networks
One of the project’s more unusual features is the planned use of waste heat.
Servers generate substantial heat during operation, while conventional data centres spend significant amounts of energy removing that heat through cooling systems.
PGE and NASK want to treat some of that output as usable energy.
The NASK project announcement says appropriately designed installations could transfer server heat into district-heating systems, helping warm water used for buildings.
That model is particularly relevant in Poland because the country has extensive municipal district-heating networks.
NASK estimates that a data centre with around 50 MW of capacity could generate enough usable heat to match the heating needs of a town of up to approximately 15,000 residents, depending on the technical design and local heating system.
That is a technical illustration of potential heat recovery rather than the confirmed specification of any facility in the PGE-NASK programme.
Data centres are becoming an energy-sector issue
The cooperation also illustrates why the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence and cloud computing is increasingly important to electricity companies.
Large data centres can require tens or hundreds of megawatts of continuous electrical capacity.
Access to reliable power, grid connections and cooling can therefore determine where projects can be developed.
For PGE, data centres could create a new source of demand for electricity while also opening a business area beyond its traditional energy operations.
PGE chief executive Dariusz Lubera said the group sees an opportunity to create additional revenue from digital infrastructure while using assets it already owns.
NASK would bring the IT side of the partnership, including experience running computing infrastructure and cloud and cybersecurity services.
Government presents project as digital-sovereignty infrastructure
The political rationale is broader than commercial data-centre development.
Gawkowski said Poland wants state institutions in the digital and energy sectors to help build domestic computing capacity rather than leaving key infrastructure entirely dependent on foreign providers.
NASK director Nielek similarly described domestic data-centre capacity as providing greater control over where information is processed and stored.
That concept is frequently described by the government as technological or computing sovereignty.
For public administration and security-sensitive workloads, the location, ownership and control of computing infrastructure can matter independently of price.
The government also sees additional computing capacity as relevant to the development of domestic artificial-intelligence services.
Separate from Poland’s AI gigafactory bid
The project should not be confused with Poland’s separate effort to secure one of the European Union’s planned AI gigafactories.
Those facilities are intended to provide very large-scale computing infrastructure for advanced artificial-intelligence development.
Rzeczpospolita reports that the PGE-NASK data-centre network could eventually complement a Polish AI gigafactory if the country succeeds in attracting one.
However, Nielek said the planned PGE facilities would not support the first phase of such a gigafactory because they will not be ready quickly enough.
He indicated that physical construction of the first PGE-NASK centre is unlikely to begin during 2027.
The programmes should therefore be treated as related elements of Poland’s wider computing-infrastructure strategy, not as the same investment.
Poland already has a growing data-centre market
NASK describes Poland as the largest data-centre market in Central and Eastern Europe and says available capacity could at least double by the end of the decade.
That growth is being driven by cloud services, digitisation and increasingly by artificial intelligence.
The PGE-NASK initiative differs from most private-sector projects because it deliberately combines computing capacity with assets held by state institutions and energy infrastructure controlled by a majority state-owned utility.
Government backing does not remove normal development constraints.
Individual centres would still require detailed technical designs, investment decisions, financing arrangements and the relevant construction and regulatory processes.
Commercial model could vary between sites
The partners have not yet announced one fixed commercial model for operating the centres.
Nielek told Rzeczpospolita that NASK is considering a hybrid approach.
Some facilities could be developed for customers willing to commit substantial computing demand in advance.
Other capacity could be built and marketed progressively by NASK.
That means the eventual network may combine dedicated installations with more conventional commercial data-centre capacity.
No major customer agreements were announced alongside the 15 October cooperation agreement.
What has actually been agreed
The most important distinction for investors and suppliers is between the strategic agreement and the investments that may eventually follow.
PGE and NASK have now formally agreed to cooperate on developing data centres.
They have identified the assets each side could contribute and begun a process for evaluating potential locations.
They have also established a model that could use server heat in PGE heating networks and existing energy infrastructure to reduce construction costs.
What has not yet been established is equally important.
There is no confirmed final list of sites, no announced capacity for the overall network, no final programme budget, no detailed financing structure and no confirmed opening date for the first facility.
Those decisions will come only after the site audit and preparation of individual investment projects.
The 15 October agreement therefore represents a significant move by Poland’s state energy and digital institutions into computing infrastructure — but the multibillion-złoty construction programme remains a proposal moving into development rather than infrastructure already being built.
