In Silicon Valley, the new currency is not data but watts, and the race for AI dominance is won by those with access to stable power. In just three years, the capacity of Poland’s data center market has doubled, exceeding 200 MW, while globally, investments totalling nearly 31.7 GW are being implemented. This is no longer a technology race – it is a war for gigawatt-hours, in which losers may be locked out of the game for decades.
The global data center market is experiencing an unprecedented boom, driven primarily by artificial intelligence. According to the Cushman & Wakefield report „2026 Global Data Center Market Comparison,” investments totalling nearly 31.7 GW are being implemented worldwide – more than two and a half times the figure indicated in the previous edition of the report. This dynamic growth is driven primarily by the development of artificial intelligence, cloud computing and increasing demand for digital infrastructure. At the same time, investors are changing the way they evaluate new locations – today, what matters is not only market size but also the ability to launch investments quickly.
The scale of the phenomenon is difficult to comprehend. According to Gartner, global electricity consumption by data centres is set to reach 565 TWh in 2026, an increase of 26 percent compared with 447 TWh in 2025. In 2027, energy consumption by AI-optimised servers is expected to surpass consumption by conventional servers for the first time. In 2026 alone, AI servers are expected to consume 175 TWh, compared with 95 TWh in 2025. Some estimates even put global consumption at 1,000 TWh. If data centres were a country, they would rank sixth in the world in terms of electricity consumption by 2030.
This rapid growth in energy demand is changing the rules of the game. Until recently, the most important question when choosing a data centre location was „where is the land?” Today, the key question is „where is the power?” The market has moved from asking about real estate availability to asking about electricity availability – a fundamental shift in the real estate strategy of the data centre sector.
Energy is the new currency
In Silicon Valley, the new currency is no longer data but watts, and the race for AI dominance is won by those with access to stable power. To feed their insatiable server farms, IT giants are abandoning wind and solar in favour of nuclear power. This is not just a lifeline for Big Tech’s climate promises but a brutal battle for supply stability in a world where a single query to a bot consumes as much electricity as a light bulb burning for an hour. A single ChatGPT query consumes on average ten times more electricity than a traditional Google search.
Although Big Tech has long promoted renewable energy sources, artificial intelligence cannot wait only for wind or sun. Data centres must operate continuously, 24 hours a day, every day of the year, requiring a perfectly flat consumption profile. The instability of renewables is becoming a bottleneck that currently available battery storage cannot unblock. In this situation, tech companies face a brutal choice: either their development will stall due to a lack of power, or they will take matters into their own hands and become active players in the energy market.
More and more companies are choosing the latter option. The leap to advanced language models has meant that giants such as Microsoft, Google and Amazon need power measured not in megawatts but in gigawatts. In this new game, nuclear power appears as a stable foundation capable of powering thousands of graphics processors without interruption, regardless of weather conditions. This is no longer just business – it is a fight for survival in a world where the limit on development is no longer capital or talent but access to clean, stable and cheap energy. Companies such as Microsoft are ready to revive old infrastructure just to secure the stability of their AI operations.
The Polish data centre market is growing at a breakneck pace
The Polish data centre market has already exceeded the 200 MW capacity threshold, growing by 100 percent in just three years. According to analyses by the Polish Data Center Association (PLDCA), Poland already accounts for more than one third of such capacity in the region. Experts forecast that by 2030, the total capacity of such facilities in Poland will reach 500 MW. The operational capacity of the Polish data centre market is currently around 200 MW, and annual energy consumption is estimated at 1.7-1.8 TWh, representing about 1 percent of national consumption. At the same time, Poland’s share of the European computing capacity market remains relatively low at about 2 percent.
In the perspective of the next decade, forecasts by Polish Power Grids (PSE) indicate that data centre capacity could increase significantly from the current approximately 200 MW to around 3.1 GW in 2036. In the longer term, in the scenario included in planning analyses, data centre capacity could reach about 5.0 GW in 2040, with annual energy demand of the order of 17.4 TWh in 2036 and 29.4 TWh in 2040. As Piotr Kowalski, Managing Director of PLDCA, emphasises, „if Poland wants to co-create the AI ecosystem and attract significant investment in computing infrastructure, we must treat the development of data centres as a key element of energy and industrial strategy.”
The scale of planned investments is impressive. According to PLDCA data, the total IT capacity pipeline in the country reaches 500 MW, of which 198 MW is already operational, 26 MW is under construction and a further 225 MW has been contracted. Huge hyperscale campuses, designed with AI development in mind, are also being prepared. The largest investments are impressive in scale – the Baltic Data Center Campus in Pomerania is set to reach 3.2 GW, the Stargard project provides for infrastructure up to 960 MW, and the Bełchatów campus is set to reach 500 MW.
Poland is among the countries that can attract further investment related to the development of artificial intelligence and cloud services. Warsaw has been included among the 107 most important data centre markets in the world. The report’s authors indicate that Poland stands out for its competitive land costs and favourable environmental risk profile. Further market development, however, will depend primarily on the ability to secure large volumes of energy, predictable connection timelines and expansion of transmission networks.
The greatest challenge turns out to be access to connection capacity. Experts point out that the data centre market has undergone a significant change. According to the Cushman & Wakefield report, the average waiting time for power supply for large consumers is currently 4.4 years. It is precisely the availability of connection capacity that is becoming one of the most important elements of competitive advantage. Projects that can demonstrate real energy availability will gain an advantage over locations that are attractive only at the planning level.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk stressed that the scale of offshore projects in Poland allows for ambitious thinking about projects necessary for the development of artificial intelligence, namely data centres that need a lot of energy. It is access to stable and predictable energy that is increasingly deciding the location of new factories, data centres and AI-related projects. The market is already observing a clear shift. Just a few years ago, Poland was treated mainly as a technological back office for Western Europe. Today, the question increasingly arises as to whether it can take over some of the investments that no longer fit into the largest European hubs.
Poland’s data centre map is changing
Currently, more than 20 projects are planned on the domestic market, including both the expansion of existing data centres and the construction of new facilities. The cumulative value of investments related to the construction of data centre facilities in 2019-2025 reached PLN 5 billion. The solid investment foundation to date has been built primarily through the activity of hyperscalers, the dynamic proliferation of cloud services and the rapidly growing demand for computing capacity necessary for AI development.
The greatest concentration of investment still falls on Warsaw and its agglomeration. It is there that the most attractive land, with appropriate power allocations and required permits, is located. However, the growing constraints on the availability of such land are forcing geographic diversification of investment. Announcements of new projects indicate growing interest in locations outside the capital, particularly post-industrial sites that can provide a high level of available connection capacity.
Examples of new strategic locations include Choczewo, the Stargard area, Bielsko-Biała (on the site of the former Fiat factory) and Bełchatów (in the immediate vicinity of the Rogowiec power substation). Key investment assets are concentrated around planned upgrades of supply substations scheduled for 2030-2032. As emphasised in the PMR report, „announcements of new facilities, expansion of existing campuses and the steady influx of new investors and operators clearly indicate that in the coming years this segment will maintain its position as the growth leader in Polish digital infrastructure.”
Energy transition as a condition for digital development
The development of artificial intelligence and cloud services is increasingly shifting the focus of digitalisation discussions from the IT sphere to the computing infrastructure sphere. Data centres are becoming a significant system consumer whose power and energy demand must be considered in the planning of the National Power System’s operation, transmission network development and investment in new generation capacity. This makes the energy transition an integral element of digital economy development.
The government’s announced trillion zlotys of investment in energy by the middle of the next decade is set to change the way Poland is perceived by global investors. The plans include PLN 234 billion for transmission networks, PLN 220 billion for renewables and energy storage, and PLN 160 billion for nuclear power. It is precisely the data centre sector that is to show whether major energy plans can be translated into real investment.
An additional opportunity for Poland lies in the problems of Western European markets. Frankfurt, Amsterdam, London, Paris and Dublin are increasingly struggling with network constraints, land shortages and lengthy administrative procedures. Operators are therefore looking for new locations that will allow them to launch investments faster. Poland, with its competitive costs, central location in Europe, developing technology ecosystem and talent pool, has a real chance to seize this moment.
Without the appropriate pace of energy infrastructure development, without shortening connection procedures and without clear conditions for project implementation, however, even the greatest demand for AI and cloud computing services will not suffice. In this race for AI dominance, it is not only technology that decides victory – it is energy, which is becoming the new, most valuable currency of the artificial intelligence era.
Photo: Pixabay
