Firebird Opens Armenia AI Factory With 6,144 NVIDIA GPUs in Strategic US-Backed CIS Expansion

Firebird Establishes CIS Region's Largest AI Factory in Strategic Armenian Deployment

Firebird, a US-based AI cloud company, officially opened the CIS region's largest AI factory in Hrazdan, Armenia, marking a significant milestone in the global buildout of AI infrastructure1

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. The facility's launch ceremony drew high-profile attendees including Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, Kazakhstan's Deputy Prime Minister Zhaslan Madiyev, and David Allen, the US chargé d'affaires in Armenia2

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. This guest list underscores the geopolitical dimension of the project, representing a US company establishing operations within Russia's traditional sphere of influence with American diplomatic presence2

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The flagship facility, designated DC-1, currently operates with 6,144 NVIDIA B200 GPUs across 15 megawatts of capacity, utilizing liquid-cooling technology built on NVIDIA's reference architecture2

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. Firebird's ambitious expansion plans target deployment of more than 70,000 NVIDIA Rubin and Blackwell GPUs and 300 megawatts of AI infrastructure capacity in Armenia by the end of 20271

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. This represents a twentyfold increase in power capacity within approximately 17 months2

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US Export Licence Enables Strategic AI Compute Capacity Expansion

The project's foundation rests on regulatory approval rather than just technical capability. Firebird secured a US export licence in November 2025, the critical regulatory step that enabled advanced NVIDIA hardware to enter Armenia2

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. The strategic nature became explicit in February when Firebird and the US government jointly announced Phase 2 at a Yerevan press conference during Vice President JD Vance's visit, scaling the project to $4 billion and roughly 50,000 GPUs with licensing for an additional 41,000 NVIDIA GB300 units2

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. This US strategic investment transforms the facility from a commercial venture into a geopolitical positioning tool, placing American-approved compute infrastructure in a region where US influence has historically been limited2

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The announcement claimed Armenia would host one of the world's five largest AI GPU clusters, a significant jump from Phase One's $500 million commitment2

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. AI factories provide the foundational infrastructure for the AI era, delivering the AI compute capacity needed to train, fine-tune and deploy AI models for every domain at scale1

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NVIDIA DSX Platform Powers Exceptional Energy Efficiency and Deployment Speed

Built on the NVIDIA DSX platform, the AI factory integrates accelerated computing, networking, power and cooling as one codesigned system1

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. This architectural approach addresses energy efficiency at scale, allowing Firebird to run up to 40% more GPUs on the same footprint, producing more tokens per dollar and extracting more value from every megawatt of capacity1

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. For a site scaling from 15 to 300 megawatts, this coordination determines where capacity gains materialize2

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Delivered in just over six months, the Armenia AI factory demonstrates Firebird's ability to convert ambitious infrastructure plans into operational capacity with exceptional speed1

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. Schneider Electric provided the power infrastructure supporting the facility, rapidly delivering and setting up critical systems including medium- and low-voltage switchgear, three-phase uninterruptible power supply systems and rack enclosures1

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. Vertiv supplied a cooling architecture combining chilled-water technology, advanced controls and Vertiv TrimCooler technology, with its iCOM CWM Chilled Water Manager centrally coordinating cooling resources1

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. Deployed on Dell Technologies PowerEdge servers, the facility represents a complete integration of AI infrastructure components1

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Investment Structure and Multi-Gigawatt Roadmap Signal Regional Expansion

Firebird announced that NVIDIA intends to invest in the company, following an earlier investment by CoreWeave this year1

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. This pattern fits NVIDIA's broader strategy of taking equity positions in companies that subsequently purchase NVIDIA hardware at scale2

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. NVIDIA has committed more than $40 billion to AI equity positions in 2026, with structures growing increasingly creative, including a $2.1 billion warrant in IREN as part of a five-gigawatt data centre deal2

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. The same approach runs through sovereign deals, with NVIDIA investing $1 billion in Naver while striking a $500 billion arrangement with SK Group2

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With NVIDIA's support, Firebird pursues an approximately 2-gigawatt AI infrastructure roadmap spanning Armenia, Kazakhstan and additional markets1

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. A planned DC-2 facility targets 75,000 VR200 GPUs across 125 megawatts, with a third site at similar scale2

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. The presence of Kazakhstan's deputy prime minister at the Armenian launch signals the multi-gigawatt roadmap's regional ambitions2

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Early Demand and Questions About AI Research and Development Workload Routing

Firebird's first named customer is Perplexity, which is working with the company to access high-performance infrastructure for its AI agent platform and answer engine. This follows a familiar neocloud playbook where companies buy GPUs at scale and rent them to model builders, a category that barely existed three years ago2

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. CoreWeave, an early Firebird backer, has signed a multi-year deal with Anthropic to run Claude at production scale2

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While AI services are available globally, countries need capacity to develop and run AI for their own languages, industries and national priorities1

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. Firebird's facility brings that capacity to Armenia, giving developers, startups, enterprises, universities and public institutions the compute to build and scale AI innovation at home1

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. The open question remains demand: building 300 megawatts in the Caucasus assumes customers will route workloads there rather than to cheaper or closer capacity2

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. As AI becomes essential infrastructure worldwide, Firebird's expansion aims to make the CIS region a magnet for global companies building and running AI, and a catalyst for local developers, researchers and enterprises engaged in AI research and development1

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