300 megawatts, 70,000 Nvidia chips: Armenia's Hrazdan data center sprints to Europe's largest computing power cluster

The Zhitong Finance App learned that during the Cold War, the smallest member republic of the Soviet Union was the electronics and technology center of this communist superpower. Today, Armenia is poised to become one of the world's top US AI infrastructure hubs, with data centers expected to reach 300 megawatts by the end of next year and be equipped with more than 70,000 cutting-edge Nvidia (NVDA.US) chips. According to Firebird, the data center in the town of Hrazdan is expected to become the largest computing cluster in the region and one of the largest computing clusters in Europe.

The data center played a role in enabling Armenia and neighboring Azerbaijan to sign a peace treaty ending decades of conflict. US President Donald Trump's team promised to allow Nvidia to export in order to advance dialogue with Armenia, and eventually reached a historic agreement brokered by the US.

Hrazdan: 300 megawatts, 70,000 Nvidia chips

In August of this year, the San Francisco-based startup Firebird went into operation at a data center in Armenia. By the end of next year, the center will have installed 300 megawatts and deployed more than 70,000 Nvidia's most advanced chips. One-fifth of its computing power is reserved for domestic use — to support local research, government, and the startup ecosystem — and the rest is distributed to foreign companies, including American companies like Perplexity AI.

According to Firebird, the complex in the town of Hrazdan is about 45 km (28 miles) from the capital Yerevan and is expected to become the largest computing cluster in the region and one of the largest in Europe. The founder of Firebird is of Armenian descent. This economic advantage has had a profound impact on the South Caucasus and neighboring Central Asia — where Firebird has already expanded, and major countries are vying for control of this strategic corridor that bypasses Russia and connects Europe and China.

Chips for peace: data centers have become bargaining chips for agreements

This data center has played a role in the process of reaching a peace treaty between Armenia and neighboring Azerbaijan. The two countries have clashed over disputed territories for decades, causing tens of thousands of deaths and the breakdown of economic relations. According to people involved in the negotiations, in order to promote negotiations with Armenia and eventually facilitate a historic agreement with Afghanistan mediated by the US, Trump's team promised to release Nvidia's export license.

Nvidia chips played an important role in this agreement. This is one of the more special cases of Trump's “non-traditional AI diplomacy” approach. It shows that while criticizing the general line of its predecessor, the Trump team is using certain chip export regulations introduced during the Biden administration to achieve goals far beyond the field of technology.

It also highlights the ambition of this small country with a population of around 3 million: it is trying to take a central position in a rapidly changing regional landscape — and Yerevan, which has been building the foundation for investing in technology and defusing concerns about America's influence over Russia for many years, is beginning to reap rewards in the AI era.

“Sovereignty” mentality

Rich Goldman (Rich Goldman), the chip design giant and founder of Synopsys's Armenian division, a key partner of Nvidia, said that since Armenia became independent from the Soviet Union, “sovereignty in general has always been a real issue for Armenia.” This explains exactly where “the paranoia of 'having to have your own AI'” comes from, he said.

The White House did not respond to requests for comment. A spokesman for Prime Minister Pashinian's office said he has a clear mandate to establish peace with Azerbaijan, and that the bilateral agreement signed in Washington last year — including in the fields of semiconductors and artificial intelligence — represents an important peace dividend for Armenia.

From Santa Clara to Yerevan: a seven-year period of paving the way

Armenia's dealings with Nvidia date back to 2019, when Pashinian visited the chipmaker's Santa Clara office — a few years before OpenAI released ChatGPT and ignited the AI craze. The meeting was arranged by former MP Hakob Arshakyan (Hakob Arshakyan); he is the first Minister of High Technology of Armenia and is currently the chairman of a foundation that promotes innovation in Armenia. The foundation's members include technology and IT executives from the global diaspora community.

Nvidia set up an office in Armenia in 2022 and evacuated engineers from Moscow to its Yerevan office after the Russian-Ukrainian war broke out in February of that year. CEO Wong In-hoon visited the Caucasus country the following year — Firebird CEO Razmig Hovaghimian (Razmig Hovaghimian) said in a statement that the trip helped lay the foundation for the establishment of Firebird.

Also in 2023, Armenia began alienating Russia — its largest trading partner and major arms supplier — previously accusing Moscow of failing to implement defense treaties and preventing Azerbaijan from invading its territory. Earlier, Baku launched a lightning military operation, completely controlling the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, triggering large-scale exodus of local Armenians, and ending the conflict that had broken out many times since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Yerevan set out to establish more ties with the West, including in the field of science and technology — an area where Armenia has a long history and strong talent. But those ambitions have been dampened by Washington: the US fears that Armenia may become a channel for Russia to acquire American hardware and supply blood to its war machine in Ukraine.

The Biden administration has effectively banned China and Russia from buying advanced AI chips in October 2022 and imposed broader sanctions on Moscow. These regulations are far from being airtight: more common American components are also often found in Russian missiles — usually supplied through intermediate countries.

The dilemma under export controls

Armenia is a member of the Russian-led customs union and remains Russia's ally in form. Despite this, Pashinian responded to pressure from the US and Europe in early 2023 and imposed strict restrictions on exports of electronic products to Russia.

According to local media reports, he said at the time that Armenia “cannot bear the consequences of Western sanctions”. In our relations with Russia, we will act in a way that avoids this outcome.”

A few months later, Washington accused a Russian semiconductor executive of using numerous shell companies in Taiwan, Switzerland, and Armenia to smuggle chips for Russian weapons to attack Ukrainian cities. At the end of 2023, the Biden team began requiring US permission to export AI chips to Armenia and more than 40 other countries, including most of the former Soviet Union and most of the Middle East. Yerevan's efforts to get out of the list have yet to bear fruit.

But Armenia continues to cooperate with Biden administration officials to obtain some of the chips. According to Al Shakiyan, who participated in the process, in 2024, after more than six months of negotiations, a national university project obtained an export license for 64 Nvidia's flagship H100 accelerators for use in the region's largest supercomputer at the time.

Arshakyan said the project took more than a year to run due to Armenia's lack of knowledge to build data centers. But he added that the experience provided critical expertise in everything from professional construction to US export controls, making Firebird's data center — and another data center for Armenian company Eleveight AI — possible. A spokesperson for Eleveight AI said the company is considering expanding to Kazakhstan, but it is yet to be finalized.

Permits are still the threshold; there is a precedent in the Middle East

These larger data centers still require US licensing. While Trump relaxed a core part of Biden's chip restrictions, the regulations introduced in 2023 remained largely untouched while his team was developing his own global framework — and they're already taking advantage of those early rules. For example, in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, Trump administration officials suspended chip export licenses until the two Gulf countries agreed to add provisions restricting China's potential acquisition channels and investment in the US.

In Armenia, a chip export license has become one of the bargaining chips for the implementation of a peace agreement with Azerbaijan. The treaty, which has not yet been signed, will pave the way for a key transportation corridor through Armenia from Azerbaijan to Nakhichevan, an enclave bordering Turkey — the so-called “Trump Road to International Peace and Prosperity” (TRIPP), to be managed jointly by the US and Yerevan.

A US State Department spokesperson said in a statement that TRIPP aims to “promote the prosperity and security of Armenia and Azerbaijan, expand US business opportunities, and open up new transit routes from Central Asia and the Caspian Sea to Europe by expanding regional trade and connectivity.” The agency referred questions about export licenses to the Ministry of Commerce, which is responsible for the relevant licensing. The Ministry of Commerce did not respond to questions.

According to a spokesperson, Firebird and its partners first applied for permission to buy Nvidia chips in early 2025, when the company was not officially established until several months later. The spokesperson said that the company obtained the first batch of US permits before the White House peace summit in August of that year, adding that Firebird was unaware of ongoing diplomatic discussions at the time.

It's unclear when the Trump administration first approached Nvidia about the role the data center could play in advancing the initial peace agreement. On the same day that Pashinian and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev finalized a preliminary peace agreement, the US and Armenia signed a bilateral memorandum of cooperation on artificial intelligence and semiconductors.

Statements from all parties

An Nvidia spokesperson said, “Armenia has extraordinary technical talents and a dynamic and growing innovation ecosystem. That's why we started investing in its future a long time ago. We know that Armenia can create economic opportunities, which in turn will strengthen regional ties and help support the foundation for lasting stability.”

Firebird has now obtained more than double the number of Nvidia processor licenses the US approved to export to Saudi Humain after months of negotiations with Riyadh — and Saudi Arabia's financial strength is several orders of magnitude stronger than Armenia. “The Armenian and US governments have always been extremely supportive of our vision and growth plans in Armenia,” said Khovajimian. Peace and regional stability create the conditions for investment, innovation, growth, and global partnerships to thrive.”

Firebird began operations last month, exactly one year after the White House summit — the chip used, as Vice President JD Vance said when visiting Yerevan in February of this year, “simply doesn't exist in most countries.”