Intel is investing $4.6 billion in a Polish chip factory. Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud are expanding. They follow Asian semiconductor companies, Taiwan’s USI, Korea’s LG Electronics, Heesung, and Japan’s Pilkington who already have invested.
Poland is becoming Europe’s hot new tech destination. The new center-right coalition government is wooing foreign investors, touting the country’s low costs, skilled workforce, and pro-American and Taiwanese policies. But Warsaw still needs to prove that it can offer regulatory stability, strong cybersecurity, and elite engineering talent.
Progress is visible. Not long ago, Poland served as a tech backwater, literally. Investors came to the country to run their back offices, focusing on low-grade paperwork. Today, the country is moving up the value chain into semiconductors, cloud computing, and other cutting-edge services.
Google offers a good example. When it came to Poland 19 years ago, its first office had one room and could fit no more than three people. The search company’s initial investment was in Wrocław, which focused on accounting and advertising sales.
In 2022, Google spent $700 million to buy two Warsaw skyscrapers, the largest office transaction in Poland’s history and the entire central European region. Google Poland now employs more than 1500 workers, including scores of engineers. The Warsaw office is Europe’s largest Google Cloud Technology development center, serving global customers.
Poland now hopes to become a European cloud hub. Amazon Web Services is also expanding its presence. According to McKinsey, widespread adoption of cloud services could add 4% to Poland’s annual GDP by 2030.
Semiconductors represent the other central pillar in Poland’s tech strategy. The country is angling to benefit from the European Union’s just-passed CHIPS Act. Vigo Photonics, a Polish company specializing in infrared detectors and modules, is finalizing EU funding of about EUR 100 million for a new factory. NVIDIA, known for producing GPUs and AI hardware, is in talks to build quantum computing centers. It might be a crucial move for securing Poland’s position in the accelerating race for this advanced computing power.
Some domestic Polish companies are also thriving. Homegrown Allegro is the country’s largest e-commerce platform, far ahead of Amazon. It counts 14.3 million customers in Poland and the online marketplace recently expanded into the Czech Republic, where it already has 600,000 users.
Politics is key. While France, Germany, and Italy have long been skeptical about Silicon Valley’s outsized influence, both economic and cultural, Poland has remained pro-American and welcoming, under the previous right-wing nationalist government and the new center-left coalition. Unlike France, it didn’t impose any special digital tax and opposed any efforts to impose sovereignty requirements on cloud providers. Unlike Germany, it did not restrict product launches out of privacy concerns.
The present government has brought the company back into the EU’s good graces. It takes over the rotating six-month EU presidency and the D9+ Group in the first half of 2025. Importantly for tech investors, Warsaw favors a legislative pause to focus instead on implementing recent tech regulations. Deputy Prime Minister Krzysztof Gawkowski recently visited Silicon Valley, meeting with Meta, Intel, Palo Alto Networks, and Nvidia.
Another target is semiconductor superstar Taiwan. In May 2022, a Polish trade delegation visited the island and a Taiwan-Polish working group on semiconductors was established. Taiwan-based chipmaker MediaTek has set up an R&D facility in Warsaw and Polish officials say Taiwan Semiconductor is recruiting Polish engineering talent.
Despite these visible successes, Poland faces significant challenges in its ambition to become a tech leader. Established tech hubs France and Germany continue to attract substantial foreign investments. Both countries benefit from large domestic markets, advanced infrastructure, and strong influence within the European Union.
Poland has made significant strides in education and boasts a highly skilled technical workforce. In Poland, education attainment among 25-34-year-olds saw a significant rise between 2000 and 2021, increasing by 26 percentage points, which was 5% above the OECD average.
Yet Poland needs to improve its human capital. While the country enjoys an educated workforce with strong technical skills, it lacks experienced professionals capable of driving high-level innovation. Foreign engineers must be recruited. Many of the Google cloud specialists in Warsaw come from abroad. Poland’s R&D expenditure remains relatively low at 1.4% of GDP, compared to the EU average of 2.3%, which limits the domestic development of advanced industries.
Warsaw also needs to be convinced that it offers regulatory stability. Although tech investors such as Google have always been welcome, a 2021 media law spooked foreign investors. It almost forced the sale of Poland’s largest private broadcaster, owned by America’s Discovery Channel.
Cybersecurity represents another concern. The country has experienced a 400% increase in cyber-attacks over the past two years. Polish companies now suffer up to 1,000 incidents a week, with 85% of these attacks linked to Russia. The government is aware of the need to strengthen its cyber defenses and step up its cyber diplomacy.
Poland enjoys a giant opportunity. While much of Europe has become hostile to Silicon Valley, it holds out a welcoming hand. Provided it manages to attract top-flight engineers, tackle the Russian cybersecurity threat, and continue on its pro-American, pro-EU diplomatic path, it is poised to become a tech hub.
Maciej Filip Bukowski is a Non-resident Fellow at CEPA’s Digital Innovation Initiative, a 2022 CEPA James S. Denton fellow and an Earth System Governance Project Research Fellow. A graduate of the Sorbonne and Cornell law schools, he is completing a Ph.D. thesis on the geopolitics of climate change at Jagiellonian University.
Bandwidth is CEPA’s online journal dedicated to advancing transatlantic cooperation on tech policy. All opinions expressed on Bandwidth are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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