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US news agency Bloomberg has published an extensive article on the opening of Firebird AI’s artificial intelligence factory in Armenia, the country’s technological potential, the development of relations with the United States and the peace process with Azerbaijan.
The agency notes that during the Cold War, Armenia, the smallest republic in the Soviet Union, was a centre for electronics and technology in the communist superpower, while today the country is on track to become one of the world’s leading hubs for US artificial intelligence infrastructure.
“San Francisco-based startup Firebird began construction of a data centre in Armenia in August, which will reach a capacity of 300 megawatts by the end of next year and will be equipped with more than 70,000 cutting-edge chips. One fifth of its processing capacity is intended for domestic use to support local research, government and startup ecosystems, while the remainder is allocated to foreign companies, including US firms such as Perplexity AI,” the article states.
Firebird, whose founders are of Armenian origin, stressed that the complex in the city of Hrazdan, about 45 kilometres from the Armenian capital Yerevan, will soon become the region’s largest computing cluster and rank among the largest in Europe.
“This is an economic advantage with far-reaching implications for the South Caucasus and neighbouring Central Asia, where Firebird is already expanding and where major powers are competing for dominance over a strategic corridor linking Europe and China while bypassing Russia,” the publication states.
“Armenia has outstanding technical talent and a dynamic, growing innovation ecosystem. That is why we began investing in its future long ago. We know that Armenia can create economic opportunities that will, in turn, strengthen regional ties and help lay the foundations for long-term stability,” an Nvidia representative said.
The data centre has also already played a role in concluding a peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan. According to people involved in the negotiations, US President Donald Trump’s team promised to authorise Nvidia exports in order to advance negotiations with Armenia towards a historic agreement with Azerbaijan mediated by the United States.
“A representative of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s office said that the bilateral agreements signed in Washington last year, including one on semiconductors and artificial intelligence, represent important peace dividends for Armenia,” the article states.
The author recalls that Armenia’s cooperation with Nvidia began in 2019, when Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan visited the chipmaker’s Santa Clara office, several years before the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT sparked the artificial intelligence boom. The meeting was organised by former National Assembly member Hakob Arshakyan, who was one of the founders of Armenia’s Ministry of High-Tech Industry and now chairs the board of a foundation that promotes innovation in Armenia and brings together technology and IT leaders from around the world.
“According to Arshakyan, who participated in negotiations with the administration of former US President Joe Biden in 2024 over obtaining chips, after more than six months of negotiations, a state university project received export licences for a batch of 64 advanced Nvidia H100 accelerators, which at the time constituted the region’s largest supercomputer.
“According to Arshakyan, it took more than a year to launch the project because Armenia lacked expertise in building data centres. However, the experience made it possible to acquire important knowledge across all areas, from specialised construction to US export regulations,” the article states.
In August 2026, Firebird launched the largest AI factory in the CIS region in Armenia, establishing a new AI computing centre based on NVIDIA accelerated computing technologies and Dell Technologies’ high-performance AI infrastructure. AI factories are the foundational infrastructure of the AI era, providing the computing power needed to train, refine and deploy AI models at scale across various sectors.
NVIDIA co-founder and CEO Jensen Huang addressed participants in the opening ceremony of the AI factory in Hrazdan via video message.