Microsoft will invest $1 billion in Poland to build a data center region in order to provide cloud services to businesses and government institutions, among other verticals. Microsoft inked an agreement with domestic cloud provider Chmura Krajowa to provide cloud services across Poland and parts of Central Europe.
“Poland has the opportunity to be the digital heart of Europe," said Mark Loughran, general manager, Microsoft Poland, in a statement. "This is why today we are announcing a partnership with Chmura Krajowa, and one of the biggest investments in digital technology in Poland ever of $1 billion investment in skilling, digital transformation support, and building a Microsoft global-scale and trusted cloud region, giving our customers and strong local partner ecosystem access to our world-class digital technology and innovative cloud solutions all located here in Poland."
The investment followed on the heels of Microsoft working with Polish organizations and businesses over the past 30 years. Microsoft has more than 60,000 local partners in Poland.
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In addition to the cloud services, Microsoft will also offer a long-term training program in Poland that will help businesses and organizations implement their cloud-based digital transformation strategies.
"I deeply believe that Microsoft’s investment in Poland will be important for enterprises, public institutions and the education system and will enable them to digitally transform and implement new work standards," said Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, in a statement. "Our primary goal is to accelerate Poland’s transformation into a technological hub for the region of Central and Eastern Europe,”
In addition to the Microsoft Azure cloud services, Poland's digital economy also stands to gain from Microsoft's Office 365 applications that can be hosted in the cloud for software-as-a-service (SaaS) workloads as well as its Dynamics 365 business applications.
Microsoft has 59 cloud data centers across the globe with Microsoft Azure services now available in more than 140 countries.