Firebird's "AB plant" opened in Hrazdan: what does it give to Armenia?

Today, on August 8, the artificial intelligence factory of Firebird AI was officially opened in Hrazdan. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan attended the opening ceremony.

The date was chosen deliberately, exactly one year after the Washington Summit.

In this article, we try to outline what has actually been built, what it brings to Armenia, and what questions still remain open.

What is the "AI Factory"?

First of all, a clarification, because the name is misleading.

This is not a chip factory. Processors are not manufactured in Armenia. We are talking about a data center: a large building housing thousands of specialized processors on which artificial intelligence models run.

The word "factory" is used because NVIDIA presents such centers as production facilities: instead of raw materials, electricity and data go in, and computational output comes out.

In simple terms, Armenia now has physical infrastructure on which an Armenian company, university, or government body can train or run an AI model without outsourcing this work to a foreign cloud service.

The Numbers

Phase One (operational)

Phase Two (announced)

According to NVIDIA, Firebird plans to deploy more than 70,000 NVIDIA Rubin and Blackwell processors and 300 megawatts of AI infrastructure capacity in Armenia by the end of 2027.

According to the Ministry of High-Tech Industry of the RA, by the end of the second phase, total investments will reach about 4 billion dollars, and more than 41,000 processors will be added to the infrastructure.

Note the difference in figures. In the official data published in June, it was about 250 megawatts for 2027. Today NVIDIA mentions 300 megawatts. The difference could be related to project adjustments, but it is worth noting.

How it was financed

In March 2026, the Minister of High-Tech Industry of the Republic of Armenia, Mkhitar Hayrapetyan, announced that for the first time in the history of Armenia's banking system, a syndicated loan agreement was signed between six financial institutions to finance a technological megaproject.

The amount: 300 million dollars to Firebird AI for the construction of the factory in Hrazdan.

That is, a significant part of the project was financed by Armenian banking capital, not only by foreign investment.

Why the US Export License is Important

This is a technical detail that is easy to miss, but it is the foundation of the project.

NVIDIA's high-end processors are under strict US export controls. Without a license from the US government, it is simply impossible to bring them to Armenia.

That license has been granted. According to the Caspian Policy Center, in a rare move, the US granted an export license for tens of thousands of NVIDIA Blackwell GB300 processors.

According to a publication by Armenian Epress.am, Armenia became the third developing country, after Saudi Arabia and the UAE, to receive such a right.

During the opening, the Prime Minister directly linked this to the Washington Summit on August 8, 2025, noting that back then Armenia had to justify returning from the US with only a memorandum of understanding in the field of technology and artificial intelligence, and that today's opening is the result of that memorandum.

What does this give to Armenia?

Four concrete things.

1. Computational sovereignty

This is the main argument of the project. AI services are available worldwide, but countries also need their own capacity to develop and run AI for their language, sectors, and national priorities.

In practice, training a language model for Armenian, working on state data, or processing medical data can now be done in Armenia, rather than on foreign servers.

2. Direct investment and rating

500 million dollars in the first phase, and the announced up to 4–5 billion in the second phase, is a huge number for the scale of Armenia's economy.

Pashinyan noted at the opening that international agencies are consecutively reviewing Armenia's sovereign ratings.

3. Signal to the tech sector

The involvement of NVIDIA, Dell, and the US government changes the perception of Armenia in the international technology market. This signal in itself can be more valuable than the hardware itself.

4. For Hrazdan

The city receives infrastructure investment and a new economic function. For a Soviet industrial city, this is significant.

Four open questions

This section is necessary for the picture to be complete.

1. Electricity

This is the most serious issue, and it was raised by the Prime Minister himself.

In June 2026, Pashinyan said that AI factories significantly increase electricity consumption, and that just a year or a year and a half ago, Armenia could have considered that it had a significant electricity surplus and needed to find ways to consume it, whereas today we already need to think about creating new generating capacities.

18 megawatts in the first phase is a manageable load. 300 megawatts is a completely different scale. For comparison, by industry estimates, a 100-megawatt data center consumes roughly as much electricity as a city of about 120,000 residents.

According to an AFP publication, officials note that Armenia's mix of nuclear, hydro, thermal, solar, and wind energy is sufficient for the first phase, but long-term expansion may require new generating capacities, including a potential new nuclear power plant.

2. Jobs

Data centers are known for creating few permanent jobs relative to the investment volume.

According to the publication by Epress.am, it is about 50 jobs in Hrazdan.

This does not mean the project is useless, but it means that its value should be measured not by direct employment, but by how much this infrastructure is used by Armenian companies, startups, and universities.

3. Environmental Assessment

According to an investigation by Epress.am, the RA Law on Environmental Impact Assessment, adopted in 2014, does not explicitly include data centers, most likely because at the time the law was adopted, AI factories did not exist on this scale.

According to the same publication, Firebird AI acquired the land from private owners, but consultations and public hearings with local residents were not conducted.

The company, for its part, reports that the center is equipped with a closed-loop water cooling system, which requires water replacement only once every few years.

4. Workforce

According to Edik Harutyunyan, head of the "42 Yerevan" IT educational program, the infrastructure itself is not enough: Armenia has few AI specialists and has struggled for decades to retain young specialists in the country.

In his words, to use these opportunities, correct knowledge and workforce are needed.

Separately, about disinformation

According to a publication by the Fact Investigation Platform of Armenia (FIP.am), the AI factory became the target of a disinformation campaign called Storm-1516, which spread three different false narratives within a month.

Since June 30, a network of bot accounts on platform X has spread a claim that the project was doomed from the start because Armenia's power infrastructure is in a weak state, and the system would collapse after launch.

This does not mean the energy issue is false; it is real and has been raised by the government itself. But the "collapse" claim and the "need for new capacities" claim are not the same thing.

What to follow in the coming months

1. Utilization rate — which Armenian companies, universities, and government bodies actually start working on this capacity
2. Phase two funding — the announced 4 billion dollars is not yet secured
3. Energy decisions — what new generating capacities is the government planning?
4. Workforce programs — will there be state programs for training AI specialists?
5. Legislative gap — will the environmental assessment law be updated regarding data centers?

Summary

What was opened in Hrazdan is a physically existing, working infrastructure: 6,144 processors, 18 megawatts, and a 500 million dollar investment. This part is not an announcement, but a fact.

Everything beyond that—70,000 processors, 300 megawatts, 4 billion dollars—is still a plan, not a reality.

The main question at this point is not how powerful the equipment is, but who will use it and for what. If the capacity mainly serves foreign clients, Armenia will get taxes, a few dozen jobs, and an image boost. If it becomes the foundation for Armenian research, education, and public services, the impact will be much greater.

This will be seen not on the opening day, but one or two years later.

Sources

1. "Armenpress" (opening ceremony, Prime Minister's speech, NVIDIA data), 08.08.2026 — https://armenpress.am/en/article/1257541
2. "Armenpress" (official opening of Firebird's AI factory), 08.08.2026 — https://armenpress.am/en/article/1257536
3. Ministry of High-Tech Industry of the RA, 05.06.2026 — https://hightech.gov.am/en/articles/news/firebird-06-1
4. "Armenpress" (Pashinyan: AI requires new generating capacities), 16.06.2026 — https://armenpress.am/en/article/1253195
5. Public Radio (first batch of Blackwell processors), 02.06.2026 — https://en.armradio.am/2026/06/02/first-batch-of-nvidia-blackwell-gpus-arrives-in-armenia-as-firebird-ai-megaproject-enters-implementation-phase/
6. Radar Armenia (300 million USD syndicated loan), 03.2026 — https://radar.am/en/news/social-2749247549/
7. FIP.am fact-checking platform (Storm-1516 disinformation), 07.2026 — https://fip.am/en/50326
8. Epress.am (environmental assessment, jobs) — https://epress.am/en/2025/12/16/ai-data-center-in-hrazdan-proceeds-while-environmental-checks-are-bypassed.html
9. Caspian Policy Center (export license, strategic context) — https://www.caspianpolicy.org/research/south-caucasus/data-deterrence-dependence-armenias-ai-ambitions-and-americas-strategic-calculus
10. AFP / Taipei Times (energy and workforce concerns), 05.2026 — https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2026/05/03/2003856649
11. CivilNet (general project description), 05.2026 — https://civilnet.am/en/news/1001816
12. Iravaban.net (technical specifications of the first phase), 05.06.2026 — https://iravaban.net/en/559828.html