The EMP Hub – a Project That Goes Beyond a Single Investment

The EMP Hub is an investment aimed at developing a competitive, technologically advanced, high-volume initiative with an international market reach. Its primary economic objective is to build market and technological capabilities that enhance the competitiveness of the region and create an environment conducive to the emergence of related, scalable businesses based on proprietary next-generation technological solutions.

From the outset, this project was not defined solely by the scale of capital expenditure or production volume. The EMP Hub was designed as a platform for long-term capability development, capable of operating under conditions of global technological and industrial competition.

In an increasingly bipolar world shaped by technological rivalry between the U.S. and China, access to technology and the ability to further develop it are becoming key determinants of economic and political power. Countries and regions are intensifying efforts toward strategic industrial investments and increasing local value added. Poland has real grounds to aspire to join the world’s most developed economies; however, this requires the consistent execution of a long-term development strategy, supported by the state in a deliberate and targeted manner focused on building competitive advantages based on technology, innovation, and capabilities.

In this context, the EMP Hub serves as an instrument for strengthening the country’s productivity, resilience, and economic sovereignty. Projects of this scale require not only capital, but also stable regulatory frameworks, appropriate financial instruments, and organizations capable of managing complex technological undertakings over a long time horizon.

Why a Factory Alone Is Not Enough

The EMP initiative is often described through the lens of the Izera project (the original formula of the undertaking), the factory itself, the number of jobs created, or the transformation of post-mining regions in Silesia. These are socially and economically important aspects, but they do not fully capture the essence of the hub.

Modern competitive advantage no longer derives solely from manufacturing capacity. Increasingly, it is clear that strong brands built on leading technologies translate into both economic and strategic advantage. Examples from semiconductors, AI technologies, and energy systems show that in a world of growing concentration in high-tech sectors, market success is determined not merely by access to innovation, but by the ability to develop, adapt, and deploy it at industrial scale.

It is precisely at this stage that Europe, including Poland, most often loses competitiveness to the U.S. and China—and this is exactly why the way the EMP investment is implemented is so critical.

Hub Architecture: Combining State and Market Logic

The hub concept was designed to enable a synergistic combination of state industrial policy objectives with market mechanisms. In this model, EMP, as a state-owned company, uses public funds to pursue strategic economic goals, while industry partners are responsible for efficient operational management and product competitiveness.

The hub combines substantial infrastructure investment related to factory construction with very large investments in technology development. This applies both to the core joint-venture business and to initiatives carried out together with local technology partners. In the initial phase of operations alone, more than PLN 1.4 billion is planned for purposes directly related to the development of local technological capabilities.

Such a structure requires an appropriate organizational model.

Holding-Based Development Model and the Role of EMP

The hub’s architecture is based on a holding-type development model, in which EMP manages a portfolio of companies implementing individual elements of the strategy. This portfolio includes, among others:

• a joint venture with a global industry partner implementing the main production investment of a European headquarters for a passenger car brand,

• companies responsible for critical production and distribution infrastructure,

• engineering centers developing key technologies,

• initiatives linked to a strategic technology supplier development program.

In this model, EMP acts as an integrator and coordinator of the long-term strategy, aligning industrial policy objectives with market-driven projects. One of the key tasks of the holding is to secure financing for technology industrialization, not merely for early-stage development. It is precisely at the industrialization stage that Europe, including Poland, most often loses the global technology race.

The Scale of the Joint Venture as the Foundation of the Ecosystem

The central element of the hub in the first investment phase will be a large-scale joint-venture business with a global automotive manufacturer operating at million-unit sales volumes. The JV provides financial stability, appropriate operational scale, and thousands of jobs—both in the factory itself and in supporting business functions such as engineering, procurement, logistics, marketing, and distribution.

At the same time, from the outset the hub assumes the development of capital-independent ventures outside the JV, covering production infrastructure, engineering centers, and distribution channels. The hub will also develop co-investments with local technology partners. This will result in a network of interconnected businesses that initially serve the JV and, over time, gain the ability to diversify their customer portfolios.

Today, the key development barrier is not a lack of innovation, but a lack of capability to scale and industrialize it. The hub enables coordination of the missing elements: long-term financing and a stable competence environment. Its role is to build the right conditions and organizational culture for enterprises capable of executing complex deployments of advanced technological products under competitive market conditions. Such processes must comprehensively address all phases of an undertaking—from concept, through financing strategy, development, industrialization, marketing, and global sales.

Licensing as a Starting Point, Not the Goal of Technology Transfer

One of the core elements of building technology transfer within the EMP hub is acquiring a license to the product portfolio of the industry partner. The license enables rapid market entry, reduces technological risk, and allows production scale to be achieved relatively quickly.

However, a license cannot be an end in itself. It provides access to a product, but only engineering centers, digital innovation, and hands-on project work transform it into real technology transfer and sustainable economic advantage.

In market practice, technology licensing often takes the form of a “black box” model, limited to the right to manufacture and sell a finished product. Such a model does not provide access to system architecture, engineering documentation, or the ability to further develop the technology. While effective in the short term, it does not lead to sustainable capability building.

The EMP hub model assumes a development-oriented license that, in addition to production rights, provides access to technical specifications, design documentation, and real rights to modify, modernize, and develop subsequent generations of products. Only such a license enables genuine know-how transfer.

The JV Engineering Center – Internalizing Technology

A prerequisite for leveraging the potential of a development license is the existence of appropriate organizational structures. Therefore, one of the key elements of the hub’s architecture is the joint-venture engineering center.

This center enables the direct involvement of local teams in:

• adapting products to European market requirements,

• integrating components and technologies from local suppliers,

• modernizing existing solutions,

• co-developing subsequent iterations and generations of products.

This model resembles the operation of European R&D centers of manufacturers such as Toyota or Hyundai/Kia, where engineering teams in Europe gradually move from adaptation to genuine co-development of global product platform technologies.

The EMP Innovation Center – Digital Technologies, Data, and Future Product Generations

Alongside the JV engineering center, the hub’s architecture includes the establishment of the EMP Innovation Center, which plays a distinct but complementary role within the overall technological ecosystem.

The Innovation Center focuses on areas not directly covered by the product license, yet critical to long-term competitiveness and technological sovereignty, in particular:

• software and digital services accompanying vehicles,

• IT architecture and data management systems,

• cybersecurity and over-the-air (OTA) updates,

• vehicle-to-energy system integration (V2X),

• development of new data- and service-based business models.

The Innovation Center will work closely with the JV engineering center to ensure coherence between physical and digital product development.

Next-generation vehicles are becoming elements of critical infrastructure: they generate data, integrate with energy systems, and require control over software and cybersecurity. Therefore, the EMP Innovation Center will initially focus on building proprietary intellectual property in software, digital infrastructure, and data management. Plans include establishing a proprietary data center to ensure control over key digital infrastructure, data processing, and the development of services requiring a high level of security and technological independence.

An important area of activity will also be the development of technologies integrating electric vehicles with the energy system, particularly V2X solutions such as V2Home, V2Grid, and V2Load.

The Innovation Center will also collaborate with local engineering and software companies, both on a project basis and through investments. It is intended to serve as a co-development platform for digital technologies, enabling local entities to participate in projects of a scale otherwise inaccessible outside such an ecosystem.

Supplier and Technology Partner Development Program as an Extension of the Innovation Ecosystem

A key component of the hub’s architecture is the set of mechanisms for strategic investments under the supplier and technology partner development program. Similar to large international automotive groups, EMP—thanks to its hub structure, financial capacity, and critical mass of competencies—can invest in long-term partnerships with local companies.

This program is an integral part of the hub architecture and aims to build lasting technological capabilities on the supplier side.

The presence of both the JV engineering center and the EMP Innovation Center creates conditions in which suppliers:

• participate in design processes from early development stages,

• develop their own R&D teams in cooperation with mature engineering structures,

• gradually build their own engineering centers embedded in the hub ecosystem.

In the longer term, this model also enables joint investments with Tier 1 suppliers, including battery manufacturers, charging system providers, and electric drivetrain suppliers. As a result, the supply chain ceases to be a purely cost-based relationship and becomes a technology co-creation network capable of serving multiple customers and markets.

Under favorable conditions, this business model and the competencies accumulated within the hub may also form the basis for the development of additional strong automotive brands.

High Stakes, High Complexity

The adopted EMP hub development model is ambitious and inherently more complex than a traditional manufacturing investment. This also entails the need for conscious risk management associated with building technological capabilities at industrial scale.

One of the key challenges is building teams in Poland capable of developing competitive technologies, not merely adapting them. This applies both to engineering competencies and to the ability to operate within international development structures and across successive product generations.

Another significant risk is building an effective software organization within a state-owned company structure, capable of competing for talent and delivering projects at the pace required by the global technology market. Labor costs for highly qualified engineers in Poland are also increasingly approaching Western European levels.

A separate category of challenges concerns negotiations with the strategic partner, particularly regarding the scope of the license, openness to technology modifications, and joint development of future product generations. Divergences of interest between EMP and the industry partner may naturally arise, especially in access to key know-how and system architectures.

Geopolitical risks must also be considered, including restrictions on technology transfer, export controls, and requirements related to cybersecurity and data protection. In areas such as software, digital infrastructure, and energy system integration, these factors are of strategic importance.

Awareness of these risks is an integral part of the adopted approach. The EMP hub model assumes their active and deliberate mitigation through appropriate organizational architecture, diversification of competencies, development of local intellectual property, and close cooperation with public institutions. The expected outcome—a durable capability to develop technology and generate domestic value added—justifies the scale of effort and the complexity of the strategy.

Learning by Doing

Building such a capability platform within a state-owned company structure is a significant challenge, but EMP can draw on concrete experience gained during the Izera project.

A professional and motivated project team was formed for this undertaking. At its peak, approximately 500 people worked simultaneously across Europe and Asia, forming an integrated team of engineers, designers, procurement specialists, and project managers managed by EMP. In a relatively short time, an organization capable of comprehensively managing complex business-technology projects was built, based on effective partnerships and practical capability development during execution.

The suspension of the project led to the dispersion of some accumulated resources; however, the implementation model demonstrated that international cooperation between a young organization and a mature corporation can result in a strong operational structure and an appropriate business culture. This experience became one of the foundations for developing a mature hub concept, the quality of which has been confirmed both by financing institutions’ analyses and by the interest of industry partners.

A Strategic Approach to Industrial Sovereignty

The EMP Hub was designed as a durable platform for building competencies, technologies, and value added—not as a single infrastructure project. This assumption stems from recent experience and from the changing conditions in which Polish industry must now operate. The era in which it was sufficient to create a favorable environment for foreign investment has ended.

In a world where technology increasingly becomes an instrument of economic and political power, the absence of domestic capabilities quickly turns into structural dependence—and ultimately into a real cost for the economy and the state.

Therefore, what matters is not only formulating ambitious goals and strategies, but above all the ability to implement them consistently, at the right scale, over time, with determination and a clear sense of responsibility. It is at this level that real industrial sovereignty is decided today.

If sufficient determination and solidarity emerge to move from declarations to execution, the EMP hub can become a flagship example of building industrial sovereignty in practice.