The Czech Republic joins the Baltic AI Gigafactory project. Poland is the leader of the digital alliance

The Czech Republic joined the Baltic AI Gigafactory project, in which Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia participate; countries have started working on a joint application on this matter to the European Commission, the Ministry of Digital Affairs announced on Friday.

According to the announcement of the Ministry of Digitization (MC), the Czech Republic, next to Poland – the project leader, as well as Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, will take part in the Baltic AI Gigafactory project.

“This is potentially the largest digital project of this type in the CEE region (Central and Eastern Europe – PAP),” said the ministry.

The decision is the result of a meeting between the Deputy Minister of Digital Affairs, Dariusz Standerski, and the deputy head of the Czech Ministry of Industry and Trade, Jan Kavalirek, which took place on November 27 in Warsaw. The Baltic states and the Czech Republic have started work on a joint application to the European Commission regarding a gigafactory, the ministry indicated.

At the beginning of July this year. The European Commission accepted MC's initial application to create the Baltic AI GigaFactory, which connected Poland, Lithuania and Latvia. The Czech Republic then submitted a separate application. In October this year Standerski told PAP that the ministry is conducting “very good talks” with the Czech government regarding closer cooperation. He added that the talks would continue after the parliamentary elections that took place in the Czech Republic on October 3 and 4.

The preliminary application submitted by MC assumes that the Baltic Gigafactory will be designed to support the development, training and deployment of very large AI models and applications at an unprecedented scale. The investment will cost EUR 3 billion, i.e. approximately PLN 12.7 billion. 65 percent this amount is to come from the private sector, and 35 percent. – from the public sector, half of which is to be covered by the European Commission.

In July, Standerski said in an interview with PAP that the construction of the Baltic AI GigaFactory is initially planned in a maximum of two locations in Poland, but the ministry has not yet made a final decision on this matter. “The location will depend on several factors, mainly on the size of the investment and the possibility of fiber optic connections,” Standerski pointed out. As he said, the challenge is not only the construction of the factory itself, but also the issue of connecting the largest AI centers in Poland and the Baltic countries.

According to the European Commission, artificial intelligence gigafactories are to be the most modern, large-scale artificial intelligence computing centers. and data storage, designed specifically for developing, training and deploying next-generation AI models and applications, e.g. models with hundreds of trillions of parameters.

In February this year the head of the EC, Ursula von der Leyen, announced that the EU InvestAI fund, with a budget of EUR 20 billion, will finance five artificial intelligence gigafactories in the EU. In June this year, a total of 16 Member States sent 76 initial applications for gigafactories.

The EC intends to invite countries to submit official applications at the end of 2025 (PAP)

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