At ACC Cyfronet AGH, the Gaia AI Factory will be established – a new European center for the development of trusted artificial intelligence

Project and partners

The project, with a total budget of €70 million, is co-financed in equal parts by Poland and the European Union under the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking, EuroHPC JU. The initiative aims to create infrastructure and an ecosystem that supports the development of advanced artificial intelligence technologies aligned with European values of trust, transparency, and responsibility.

The Gaia AI Factory project aims to accelerate the development and increase the adoption of cutting-edge technologies using artificial intelligence in Poland. It includes the expansion of supercomputing infrastructure, broader access to large-scale data repositories, and the strengthening of AI-related skills and competencies through a wide range of training programs, advisory services, and a talent development initiative. Activities will focus on three key areas – healthcare, the space sector, and the development of large language models (LLMs).

The Gaia AI Factory consortium consists of leading research institutions, domain experts, and technology partners representing AI stakeholder groups from across the country. These include: Academic Computer Centre Cyfronet and the Faculty of Space Technology of the AGH University of Krakow, Wrocław Centre for Networking and Supercomputing at Wrocław University of Science and Technology, CI TASK at Gdańsk University of Technology, Interdisciplinary Centre for Mathematical and Computational Modelling at the University of Warsaw, National Centre for Nuclear Research, National Research Institute NASK, the OPI National Research Institute, Sano – Centre for Personalized Computational Medicine – International Research Foundation, Małopolska Centre of Biotechnology at the Jagiellonian University, Institute of Mother and Child, and Kraków Technology Park.

The work of the Gaia AI Factory consortium, led by ACC Cyfronet AGH, is carried out with coordinated support from several key ministries: the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, the Ministry of Digital Affairs, the Ministry of Finance, and the Ministry of Development and Technology. Poland’s financial contribution to the project comes from the budgets of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education and the Ministry of Digital Affairs.

The GAIA AI Factory Consortium

Computing infrastructure for Artificial Intelligence

The Polish AI Factory is set to become a national center of excellence, offering state-of-the-art infrastructure for advanced AI-related tasks. At its core will be a new supercomputer optimized for AI workloads, enabling large-scale training, testing, and deployment of artificial intelligence models. The system is designed to meet both current and future use cases, providing over a thousand GPU accelerators for AI model training and execution. The Gaia AI supercomputer will deliver computational power several times greater than Poland’s current fastest system, Helios. Notably, like Helios, it will be located in Kraków, managed by the Academic Computer Centre Cyfronet AGH, and tightly integrated with the national PLGrid infrastructure, leveraging existing expertise and know-how of Polish institutions.

– Gaia AI Factory will accelerate Poland's contribution to building European technological sovereignty in AI – emphasizes Marek Magryś, Director of ACC Cyfronet AGH – We combine computing power, data, expert knowledge, and training to create a national platform for AI development.

New opportunities for society and the economy

Gaia AI Factory is not only infrastructure, but also a collaboration platform for science, industry, and the public sector. It will offer a set of tools and services supporting the entire lifecycle of AI projects – from data preparation to model training and deployment. Thanks to the new infrastructure and science-business collaboration, AI-based solutions will be developed more quickly, accelerating scientific research, simplifying everyday life, improving public services, and boosting economic growth.

Examples of practical benefits:

● Healthcare: faster and more accurate imaging diagnostics, medical data analysis, personalized therapies, and decision support for doctors.

● Security and public administration: intelligent data analysis systems enabling quicker threat response, improved citizen services in offices, multilingual translations in public services.

● Education: access to open AI tools and training to develop digital competencies and foster the talents essential for a modern knowledge-based economy.

● Environment and space: satellite data analysis to monitor climate change, air quality, and natural disasters.

● Economy: support for startups and companies in creating new AI-based products and services – from industry to the creative sector.

In practice, Gaia AI Factory is expected to make AI solutions more accessible, safe, and ethical, positioning Poland as a place to develop innovations based on Europe’s most advanced infrastructure. The project will include a range of training sessions and workshops to help participants acquire new skills and enhance their digital competencies.

– A key priority is to ensure that AI technology is available to everyone – from new startups and small businesses to established enterprises, research institutions, public bodies, and society at large. Regardless of an organization’s experience level, Gaia AI Factory will provide the tools needed to turn ideas into effective solutions – adds M. Magryś, Director of ACC Cyfronet AGH.

Innovation ecosystem and the future of AI in Poland

Gaia AI Factory will closely collaborate with PIAST AI Factory in Poznań and the LUMI AI Factory in Finland, forming an integrated, distributed ecosystem for AI development in Poland and across Europe. Direct access to the three AI Factories will accelerate AI adoption, support digital innovation, and position Poland as a key player in the European AI landscape.

Gaia AI Factory contributes to the goals of the Digital Europe Programme, Horizon Europe, and the AI Continent Action Plan, strengthening Europe’s capacity to develop trusted, competitive, and sovereign artificial intelligence.

Gaia AI Factory will become an acceleration and testing environment for future AI development projects, including AI Gigafactories. It will lay the foundation for massive hardware requirements and the creation and evaluation of new models and applications that may be scaled to wider environments in the future. Gaia also presents an opportunity to validate knowledge transfer, develop talent resources, and build the ecosystem connections necessary to implement industrial AI Gigafactories.

Gaia AI Factory not only strengthens Poland's position in the European AI ecosystem, but also serves as a foundation for future initiatives, enabling scalable computing and the development of advanced language models and AI applications.

Media inquiries:

AGH University of Krakow Spokesperson's office

rzecznik (at) egh.edu.pl

More information:

Official EuroHPC JU announcement on the approval of additional AI Factory locations in Europe.