“The future is now,” Pashinyan says as Firebird opens AI megaproject

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan attended the official opening ceremony of the Firebird AI Factory in Hrazdan, highlighting the role of the August 8, 2025, Armenia-Azerbaijan peace summit in Washington in making the project possible.

The opening took place on the first anniversary of the peace summit.

“First, let me congratulate all of us on this event and, more broadly, on August 8, because I feel that August 8 is gaining increasing significance in the history of the Republic of Armenia.

What is happening today is, in fact, a very important and significant event. For a long time, we have been discussing, both publicly and privately within the government, the need to change our understanding of speed. When, last year, Rev Lebaredian (NVIDIA vice president), Razmig Hovaghimian (Firebird AI co-founder), and Alexander Yesayan (Firebird AI co-founder) told us about their intention to implement such a project within a year or even less, I must admit that it sounded very unusual and even strange. At least, I did not show my feelings about it.

And here we are today, at the exact agreed location and at the right time. But we must recognize what made all this possible.

Of course, it is clear that the peace summit held at the White House in the United States on August 8, 2025, at the initiative and with the participation of U.S. President Donald Trump, and its outcome were of key importance to today’s event.

I remember that last September, we had to justify ourselves for returning from the United States having signed only a memorandum of understanding in the fields of technology and artificial intelligence, because many people were not convinced by our argument that the memorandum was a substantial document and would produce results very soon.

And here is the result.”

Pashinyan once again emphasized that August 8, 2025, was a turning point for both Armenia and Azerbaijan.

“I called the President of Azerbaijan today, by the way, and we spoke about the significance of today’s event. This is indeed an event of historic importance. We must acknowledge that peace is a turning point in terms of transforming the economic and investment environment in our country. Following these developments, international agencies have been revising Armenia’s sovereign credit ratings one after another, essentially sending a clear message to the investment community that Armenia is a place where investments can be made with confidence,” Pashinyan said.

He added that in the near future, the Armenian government will focus on another large-scale project, the TRIPP project, which will further raise Armenia’s profile on the international investment map.

According to the Prime Minister, it is particularly interesting to see how political and economic processes go hand in hand.

“In our reality, although much has been discussed at the theoretical level about the interconnectedness of the economy and politics, and of investment and politics, in practice, we have not often seen this. Today’s event is a vivid example. Following the establishment of strategic relations with the United States in January 2025, developments have accelerated,” he said.

Kazakhstan’s Deputy Prime Minister Zhaslan Madiyev also attended the event. In his speech, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan recalled that he had spoken by phone with the President of Kazakhstan the previous week and held working discussions with the Kazakh Prime Minister on August 7 on the sidelines of a meeting of the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council.

“It is a great pleasure for us to have the Deputy Prime Minister of Kazakhstan here today, and we are grateful for his presence. Today, relations between Armenia and Kazakhstan are developing at an incredible pace. This is a very good example of how politics is changing in the Republic of Armenia, how political perceptions are changing in the Republic of Armenia, and how the very concept of the state is being reaffirmed in the Republic of Armenia,” Pashinyan said.

He also addressed Armenia-Diaspora cooperation, noting that the opening of the artificial intelligence factory in Hrazdan is a very good example of such cooperation.

According to him, Rev Lebaredian and Razmig Hovaghimian, who represent the Armenian Diaspora, are focused not on sympathizing with Armenia, but on contributing to the country’s development and playing an active role in its progress.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the Republic of Armenia does not need sympathy, and I say this officially. The Republic of Armenia needs partnership and cooperation. The Republic of Armenia is a reliable partner, and I want to thank you, dear compatriots, for responding to the government’s message.

I truly appreciate it, and it is a great honor for me that today we are talking about completely different agendas—an agenda of the state, an agenda of life, an agenda of the future. The future is now, it is here, it is today, and you can see that future with your own eyes today. Thank you to everyone who has helped create that future,” the Prime Minister concluded.

Firebird’s data center in Hrazdan is the largest AI factory in the CIS region, establishing a new AI computing hub powered by NVIDIA accelerated computing and Dell Technologies’ high-performance AI infrastructure.

While AI services are available globally, countries also need the capacity to develop and run AI for their own languages, industries and national priorities. Firebird’s AI factory brings that capacity to Armenia, giving developers, startups, enterprises, universities and public institutions the compute to build and scale AI at home.

NVIDIA said that Firebird plans to deploy more than 70,000 NVIDIA Rubin and Blackwell GPUs and 300 megawatts of AI infrastructure capacity in Armenia by the end of 2027, accelerating the country’s development as a center for AI research, advanced computing and innovation.

At this scale, energy efficiency is essential. Built on the NVIDIA DSX platform, this AI factory integrates accelerated computing, networking, power and cooling as one codesigned system. Firebird’s AI factory is designed from the ground up to turn compute into revenue. With DSX, it can run up to 40% more GPUs on the same footprint, producing more tokens per dollar and extracting more value from every megawatt of capacity.

NVIDIA Founder and CEO Jensen Huang also lauded the launch in a video message.