Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk delivered a blunt message this week. Dependency on foreign technology, especially in artificial intelligence, now poses direct threats to national security and economic stability. He called for technology sovereignty to sit at the top of the political agenda.
Speaking at the European Financial Congress in Sopot on June 2, Tusk announced two concrete steps. Poland will apply a “sovereignty test” to all significant state purchases of technological solutions. Officials will also release annual reports tracking progress toward IT independence. The moves mark a sharp turn from passive reliance on global suppliers toward deliberate risk assessment in public procurement.
“At this point, the scale of this dependency, and I’m referring here to the relationship between the state and the digital sphere, has reached such proportions that it must prompt serious economic, institutional, and organisational decisions,” Tusk said, according to The Next Web.
Details of the test remain sparse. Yet its purpose stands clear. Evaluators will examine whether contracts create strategic vulnerabilities in data control, system access or long-term provider lock-in. AI infrastructure, cloud services and telecommunications sit at the center of concern. A government that outsources core analytical capabilities to distant corporations hands over influence it may never reclaim. And the risks compound fast.
Tusk’s warning carries weight because it arrives amid visible fractures across Europe. Larger members such as Germany and Spain resist tighter curbs on Chinese telecom equipment. Meanwhile EU-wide plans for €20 billion in AI gigafactories have encountered delays and funding shortfalls. National initiatives fill the gap. Poland, which held the EU Council presidency in early 2025, now positions itself as an early mover.
The country has already banned Chinese-made vehicles from military sites. It has raised the proportion of domestic firms in public contracts. These actions preview a broader shift. Procurement rules once favored speed and cost. They now weigh strategic autonomy. But implementation will test Warsaw’s resolve. Foreign vendors deliver proven performance at scale. Local alternatives often lag in maturity and capacity.
So Poland pairs the test with investment. The government plans to spend nearly €500 million, drawn mostly from European funds, on AI laboratories inside schools. Around 8,000 such facilities could emerge. The goal extends beyond education. It aims to seed domestic talent and reduce reliance on a handful of overseas technology giants. Tusk framed artificial intelligence as a matter of national security rather than mere productivity tool. TVP World reported the allocation and the prime minister’s linkage of AI to sovereignty.
Recent coverage underscores the momentum. Bloomberg noted Tusk’s explicit call to elevate technology sovereignty to counter artificial intelligence-related risks threatening security and the economy. The report highlighted the test and annual reporting mechanism as immediate policy outputs from the Sopot address. Bloomberg captured the tone of urgency that has rarely surfaced in prior European tech debates.
Poland’s approach echoes wider continental anxiety. Regulators can write rules. They cannot force access to frontier models when providers restrict them for commercial or geopolitical reasons. Europe’s delayed grasp of certain Anthropic cybersecurity tools illustrated the point. Dependence on foreign AI for defense planning, public health modeling or critical infrastructure monitoring carries hidden leverage points. Governments ignore them at their peril.
Yet building alternatives demands more than declarations. Poland’s Future Council, established months earlier, gathers scientists and business leaders to advise on artificial intelligence, space, biotechnology and dual-use technologies. The body feeds directly into sovereignty planning. Its existence signals that Warsaw views the challenge as systemic rather than episodic.
Public sentiment appears receptive. Surveys cited in May reporting showed 56 percent of Poles rank technological sovereignty a priority. Over 70 percent say they would accept higher budgets for locally developed solutions. That support provides political cover. Still, execution matters more than polling. Annual reports will expose shortfalls if domestic capacity fails to scale.
Tusk’s government also advances regulatory alignment. It prepares to transpose the EU AI Act into national law and launch sandboxes for testing. Two AI factories in Poznań and Kraków will supply computing power, data resources and training. These steps complement the procurement test. Together they form a layered strategy: restrict risky dependencies, invest in local strengths, measure outcomes publicly.
Critics may argue the policy risks protectionism. It could slow adoption of the most advanced tools and raise costs for taxpayers. Supporters counter that unchecked reliance invites subtler forms of control. Data flows, model weights, update mechanisms. All become vectors of influence when concentrated in few hands. The sovereignty test attempts to quantify those vectors before contracts are signed.
Other nations watch closely. France has championed its own champions through Mistral and related ventures. Germany balances export interests with security needs. Smaller states often follow the largest suppliers out of necessity. Poland’s test, if rigorously applied, could offer a template for middle powers seeking room to maneuver between American innovation and Chinese scale.
The timing feels deliberate. Global AI investment races ahead. Geopolitical tensions show no sign of easing. And corporate concentration in foundational models has only intensified. In this environment, passive procurement looks less like efficiency and more like strategic abdication.
Tusk did not promise quick victories. He framed the task as long and structural. Annual reports will keep the issue visible. The sovereignty test will force explicit trade-offs in tender documents. Over time those requirements may stimulate local suppliers, encourage European collaboration and alter vendor behavior.
Success remains uncertain. Technical gaps cannot close overnight. International alliances matter. Poland maintains close defense ties with the United States, including recent Microsoft commitments to expand cloud and AI capacity in the country. Balancing such partnerships with sovereignty goals will require nuance. Yet the direction is set. Warsaw no longer treats technology choice as neutral commerce. It treats it as a matter of statecraft.
And that shift may prove the most lasting outcome of Tusk’s Sopot remarks. Governments across the continent face similar calculations. Poland has chosen to test its options openly. The reports will show whether the test delivers results or merely documents the difficulty of the task.
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