Armenia's deal with Nvidia will turn the country into an AI development center

The Armenian government's deal with US tech giant Nvidia will transform the country into a hub for the development of artificial intelligence (AI). Bloomberg writes about this.

Last month, a data center was opened in the city of Hrazdan, which should become the largest computing cluster in the region and one of the largest in Europe.

At the end of 2027, the number of advanced AI chips in it will exceed 70 thousand units. A fifth of the complex is already reserved for internal use, that is, for research, government ecosystems and the American company Firebird, whose founders are of Armenian origin.

The remaining capacity is distributed among foreign companies, including the American Perplexity AI. By comparison, Firebird has already purchased twice as many Nvidia processors as the US has allowed Saudi Arabia's Humain to supply.

Armenia’s partnership with Nvidia began in 2019, when Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan visited the company’s office in the United States. The manufacturer opened its representative office in the Caucasian republic in 2022, and soon evacuated engineers from Moscow to it. The following year, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang himself visited Armenia, and then the foundation for the creation of Firebird was laid.

Nvidia chips also played an important role in concluding last year's peace agreement with Azerbaijan. According to media reports, Yerevan agreed to the deal subject to the development of closer economic ties in the United States, which guarantees its security in the event of a threat of renewed conflict.