The collaboration was announced during the Gaia Artificial Intelligence Factory Information Day. The event, held in the Main Building Auditorium of AGH University of Science and Technology, was attended by representatives of the Implementation Department – Innovation and Artificial Intelligence Center at the Institute of Mother and Child (IMiD).
What is Gaia?
Gaia AI Factory is a strategic initiative that provides Polish institutions and companies with access to cutting-edge supercomputing infrastructure, data repositories, and AI competency development programs. The project focuses on three key areas: healthcare, the space sector, and the development of large language models (LLMs).
The goal of the project is to create infrastructure and an ecosystem that supports the development of advanced technologies and AI, built on trust, transparency, and responsibility.
The infrastructure being developed in Kraków will consist of over one thousand GPU accelerators and will be several times more powerful than Helios – currently the fastest computer in Poland. The system will be part of the national PLGrid network, enabling the use of existing experience from Polish research units.
The €70 million project will be co-financed equally by the European Commission and Poland. The project coordinator is Cyfronet AGH.
A New Era of Innovation in Healthcare
Nikoletta Buczek, Deputy Head of the Innovation and Artificial Intelligence Center at IMiD, emphasized the importance of the project for healthcare:
“The Gaia project will create a secure space for testing AI-based medical solutions. It will be the first sandbox of its kind in Poland, connected to advanced infrastructure and clinical expertise.”
By joining the initiative, the Institute of Mother and Child gains the ability to:
- streamline clinical and administrative processes,
- develop innovative tools to support diagnostics,
- improve the quality of epidemiological analyses and scientific research,
- implement AI solutions that enhance patient safety and quality of care.
The project also paves the way for effective collaboration between science, administration, and industry, enabling the transfer of best practices in creating and implementing AI solutions.
Ultimately, Gaia AI Factory will become an acceleration and testing environment for future AI development projects, including AI Gigafactories. It will lay the groundwork for massive hardware requirements and the creation and evaluation of new models and applications that can later be scaled to broader environments.
Collaboration for Trusted Artificial Intelligence
Gaia AI Factory is part of a pan-European network of AI Factories coordinated by EuroHPC JU. Poland has already participated in this network through the PIAST AI Factory project in Poznań. Cooperation between institutes, including Finland’s LUMI AI Factory, creates a distributed ecosystem supporting research, innovation, and the implementation of trusted AI solutions across Europe.
The Gaia AI Factory Consortium includes leading research institutions, domain experts, and technology partners representing AI stakeholder groups from across the country:
- Academic Computer Centre Cyfronet,
- Faculty of Space Technologies, AGH University of Science and Technology in Kraków,
- Wrocław Centre for Networking and Supercomputing, Wrocław University of Technology,
- TASK Computing Centre, Gdańsk University of Technology,
- Interdisciplinary Centre for Mathematical and Computational Modelling, University of Warsaw,
- National Centre for Nuclear Research,
- NASK – Research and Academic Computer Network,
- OPI PIB – Information Processing Centre,
- Sano – Centre for Personalized Computational Medicine – International Research Foundation,
- Małopolska Centre of Biotechnology, Jagiellonian University,
- Institute of Mother and Child,
- Kraków Technology Park.
The Institute of Mother and Child has long set standards for the use of artificial intelligence in public hospitals. It was the first in Poland to establish a dedicated AI department, implementing innovative solutions to support diagnostics, clinical decision-making, and patient care management.
Today, looking to the future, IMiD continues its pioneering role, leveraging the potential of supercomputers and quantum technologies to develop next-generation AI models, shaping the future of medicine and driving the digital transformation of healthcare in Poland.
