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Paweł Olszynka, ICT Business Unit Director, PMR:

The Polish data centre market is currently at the most interesting moment in its history. Transformation: from a native-retail model towards wholesale & retail, from square metres to MWs, from a hermetic structure of supply and demand to new players and consumption of resources on a massive scale by “digital behemoths”. Domestic suppliers are also expanding, as customers prefer facilities situated in Poland. Last but not least, largest commercial data centres in Poland offer by far greater cost and energy efficiency than on-premises private server rooms, as well as provide security, redundancy and reliability, all of which can yield financial returns to help build greater resilience in the face of the current energy crisis and high inflation.

This material was prepared on the basis of the latest 2022 edition of PMR’s flagship comprehensive report on the data centre market, issued continuously since 2010: Data centre market in Poland 2022. Market analysis and development forecasts for 2022-2027

The Polish data centre market has gained momentum. There are new investments, both completed and planned. Consolidation processes are observable, especially on the Warsaw market; the cloud is gaining importance, as is certification (companies want to maintain the already held certificates while other players are trying to obtain them). All of this confirms that the data centre market in Poland is developingand even raising the standard of provided services.

A vast majority of data centres in Poland has so far been small facilities with an area under 200 m². If only floor space used for cabinets is taken into account, we have found that, as at the beginning of 2022, there were 42 such facilities. Adding server rooms with an area of 200-500 m², we obtain a total of 74 facilities. This clearly demonstrates a strong fragmentation trend in the Polish data centre market, as mentioned above. As regards the net floor space of the biggest facilities, in 2022 there was one commercial data centre in Poland (Atman Warsaw-1) with over 4,000 m² for cabinets and three in the range of 2,500-4,000 m² (T-Mobile, Equinix and Atman Warsaw-2).

Number of commercial data centre facilities offering colocation and hosting in Poland, by their gross and net floor space (m²), 2022