We should be more ambitious

Szymon Krawiec: “Directly”: How do you assess the strategy of Polish digitization presented by the Ministry of Digitization at the end of last year?

Piotr Kowalski: This document is very important for the entire state strategy, for the development of a digital state. It is very good that this document was created because it allows you to open the discussion in what direction we should digitize and also what is necessary to achieve the goals of digitization. I also value the way in which the public consultation process was carried out. He really enabled the process of reviewing this strategy. Indication of areas that should be paid more attention. In my opinion, this strategy should be treated as a living document. This is not a document that will be created once and will stand for the next 10 years. The digital world is extremely dynamic.

The processes occur so quickly that this strategy should outline directions, and daily activities should be modified regularly.

During the debate you said that this document should be a bit more ambitious. What did you mean?

This conclusion came to me when I was preparing for this debate and looked again at the goals that were set and the specific values ​​we want to achieve. I will give two examples here.

One is artificial intelligence and the number of offices and enterprises that will use this artificial intelligence over the next 10 years. The digitization strategy says that in 2035 50 percent Polish enterprises and 80 percent Polish offices should use artificial intelligence. But changes occur so quickly that our ambition should be a situation in which 100 percent. entities are used by AI.

I prefer to make this goal 100 percent. They did not reach in 2035 than that we were satisfied with the fact that in 10 years 50 percent. Entrepreneurs use artificial intelligence.

The second example is an increase in the number of specialists in the IT area. Today we say that we have about 15,000 specialists educated during the year. According to the strategy, in 2035 there should be 20 thousand. This is a 30 % increase. within 10 years. This is a very small degree of development compared to what the digital revolution needs.

What, in your opinion, still lacked more emphasis on infrastructure in the strategy. In particular, we are talking about data processing centers. Why are they so important for digital transformation?

This is one of those areas that was addressed only partly in the digitization strategy. The strategy focused on data transmission, i.e. on telecommunications infrastructure. In contrast, data processing centers have been mentioned in this strategy only in two places. Once in the context of the National Data Processing Center, i.e. a government project. And the second time in the context of university supercomputer and checking projects. However, for society it is very important that it understands that the data we think that they are in the cloud are really in data processing centers. Therefore, their development in given locations, in given countries, from the point of view of accelerating digitization is necessary.

In this area, Poland is not a leader. Only 4 percent European computing power is located in Poland. One of the obstacles in this area is the emission of the Polish economy.

Although Poland is already doing a lot to change this picture. This may change the attitude of foreign investors to Poland as a location for data processing centers. The scale of these investments is so large that it cannot be seen only from the perspective of public investments. The purpose of the digitization strategy should be that the state provides a favorable environment for foreign investments in this area.