Poland and Czech Republic back EU AI gigafactory bid

Czech officials said the Prague Declaration on AI is intended to make Central and Eastern Europe speak “with one voice” to the European Commission, and not remain a symbolic agreement. The memorandum signed with Poland covers cooperation on the EuroHPC initiative, joint work on AI infrastructure, coordination in Brussels and possible use of EU funding under EuroHPC and InvestAI, which includes the bloc’s planned spending on AI gigafactories.

Warsaw has already submitted, through a Poland-led international consortium, a June 2025 application for the Baltic AI Gigafactory, while the European Commission opened a call at the end of July for seven AI gigafactories across the EU. Poland says it has pledged more than 400 million zlotys in public backing and signed a joint procurement agreement that formally ties it into the program.

The countries are also keeping multiple options open if Brussels chooses a different winner, including a joint Polish-Czech project, two separate facilities, or shared access to one selected site through compute-sharing and joint procurement. That flexibility may improve their chances in a competition where scale, cross-border coordination and energy availability are likely to matter as much as politics.

For investors, the bid points to future demand for data centers, power infrastructure, cloud services and AI hardware suppliers in Poland and the wider CEE region. It also raises the stakes for local industrial groups and private backers seeking to join the consortia, including players already reported to be circling the project.

The next catalyst is the European Commission’s selection process, along with October working-level talks between the countries, which will show whether Central Europe can turn a diplomatic front into a credible industrial bid.