Google has announced its latest major investment in Warsaw, where it plans to establish its biggest cloud technology development centre anywhere in Europe.
Earlier this year, the US internet giant opened a new $2 billion cloud data hub in the Polish capital, its first in Central and Eastern Europe. That came alongside a similar investment in Poland by Microsoft.
“After the April opening of the Google Cloud region, the first infrastructure in Poland enabling local data processing in the cloud, we are continuing to implement our vision to make Warsaw the cloud capital of Europe,” Magdalena Kotlarczyk, head of Google Poland, told Rzeczpospolita today.
Last year, Microsoft also announced that it would develop a data centre in Poland – its first in the CEE region – as part of a $1 billion investment plan in the country https://t.co/xPmLuHU23P
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Kotlarczyk confirmed to the newspaper that its new offices in Warsaw will be the largest Google cloud technology development centre on the continent. The firm has not yet revealed the value of its newly planned investment.
“Teams will work on developing the most advanced cloud computing solutions, products and services,” added Dan Decasper, a vice president at Google and head of its cloud engineering centre in Warsaw. They will “ensure the smooth operation of the most important Google services used by billions of people around the world”.
The new Google centre will occupy 14 floors of the Warsaw Hub, a skyscraper complex whose construction was completed last year. It will include spaces that can be used to help train and inform Polish firms and entrepreneurs interested in using cloud technology.
Currently, Google, which opened its first office in Poland in 2006, employs over 800 people in Warsaw, 500 of whom are in its engineering department. That team has tripled in size over the last three years, notes Rzeczpospolita. The company also has offices in the western city of Wrocław.
Poland has in recent years seen a number of technology firms establish or expand their presence.
Earlier this year, Intel announced an investment worth tens of millions of euro at its site in the northern city of Gdańsk, which is already the company’s largest research and development centre in the EU. Amazon and Uber have also opened research and development centres in the country.
Main image credit: Pawel Czerwinski/Unsplash
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
