Key findings from the Polish Cloud report

Digital National Interest: Digital Sovereignty as a Tool for Security, Development and Industrial Policy was published this summer. The Polish Economics Network prepared the report for Polish Cloud – Association of employers. It addresses an issue we encounter in our everyday work: dependence on digital technology. We read it closely and have summarised the authors’ key figures and arguments below, leaving readers to draw their own conclusions. The full report is publicly available at polska-chmura.pl/raport.

A widening digital trade deficit

The authors begin with Poland’s trade balance. According to estimates cited in the report, the country’s digital trade deficit exceeded PLN 60 billion in 2025. We export physical goods and import software, licences and cloud services. As the authors put it, we trade atoms for bits.

The forecast is even more striking. If current trends continue, Poland’s spending on digital technology imports will overtake the total cost of its energy commodity imports by 2030. That is more than oil, gas and coal combined. We have debated energy security for years, but our dependence on digital technology is only beginning to attract public attention. The report seeks to inform that debate with concrete figures.

Public spending on IT systems

The report also examines public spending. In 2024, central government alone spent more than PLN 7 billion on information and communications technology (ICT) systems: PLN 5.5 billion on development and PLN 1.5 billion on maintenance and expansion. Yet, as the authors point out, the available data do not show how much of this money goes to domestic suppliers and how much goes abroad. An analysis of public software procurement cited in the report found that 99 per cent of the tenders examined directly or indirectly excluded alternatives to a single supplier’s products.

Paying more for the same services

The third issue is the rising cost of licences. Between 2024 and 2026, licence fees for AI and cloud services increased by an average of 8.7 per cent a year. Over the next five years, they are forecast to rise by 12 per cent annually. At that rate, the same services would cost 76 per cent more after five years.

The authors put the additional cost to the EU economy at EUR 140 billion a year. To illustrate the scale, they compare this with the economic impact of a hypothetical year-long closure of the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most important oil shipping routes. The projected cost of higher licence fees is roughly double the estimated impact of such a closure.

The commercial value of our data

The report also draws on Web3 Foundation estimates of the commercial value of data. Each year, the average user generates data worth around USD 1,600. Extrapolated to Poland’s population, that comes to PLN 224.4 billion a year, or approximately PLN 5,900 per person. Global platforms currently capture most of that value. They receive the data for free, then monetise it through paid services and advertising.

A sovereignty test for technology procurement

The report’s most practical proposal is a “sovereignty test” for technology procurement. Under this approach, each system is assessed against six criteria: operational, jurisdictional, economic, cognitive, environmental and democratic. Each system is then assigned to one of four classes, from a basic tier to a class covering the core of the state’s infrastructure. Higher classes come with stricter requirements for interoperability and auditing, along with stronger safeguards against the reach of foreign law. The principle is simple: the more critical a system, the more closely its dependencies should be scrutinised before purchase. The aim is to set requirements proportionate to each system’s importance, rather than impose blanket technology bans.

How other countries are responding

The report looks closely at what other countries are doing. This year, France’s digital directorate announced plans to switch government offices from Windows to Linux. The transition is intended to cover 2.5 million civil servants, with an initial 500,000 due to make the switch by the end of 2027. France has also moved its central health data platform to a domestic provider. On 19 June 2025, Denmark’s Ministry of Digital Affairs launched a pilot of Collabora, which is based on LibreOffice. A group of staff began using it in place of Microsoft Office within the F2 case management system. Copenhagen and Aarhus have announced plans to move away from Microsoft products. In Germany, the state of Schleswig-Holstein is moving email services for 30,000 public employees to open-source software.

The European Commission has taken steps of its own. This spring, it awarded all four contracts in its sovereign cloud tender to European companies. It also presented draft rules that would incorporate sovereignty criteria into the security tiers used for cloud services. Against that background, the authors offer a blunt assessment of Poland’s position: the race for digital sovereignty is already under way, but Poland is not taking part.

Why the report is worth reading

The report closes with the words: “This is no longer about technology. It is about the future of the state.” You may agree with some recommendations and question others. The report has already sparked debate. For us, its main value lies in grounding the discussion of technological dependence in concrete figures. Those questions matter within individual businesses, too. We will return to the subject soon with a follow-up article on what these findings mean for companies in practice and how to ask similar questions within your own organisation.