Last August, in the town of Hrazdan, 45km from Yerevan, Armenia's prime minister attended the opening of the largest AI data centre in the former Soviet space. The "AI Factory" of Firebird is expected to house more than 70,000 units of Nvidia's Blackwell and Rubin chips and have 300 megawatts of capacity by the end of 2027. It will cost around $5 billion.
One-fifth of the total computational capacity will be set aside for local uses, while the rest will cater to international clients, including Perplexity. Nvidia has announced that it plans to invest in the company. This is truly a remarkable feat for a nation of less than 3 million people without any past experience in running data centers.
It was made possible thanks to a US export license issued during the time of relaxed export rules under the Trump presidency. The symbolism felt somewhat painful in Baku, perhaps mainly in the public and media atmosphere. Azerbaijan, despite sitting at the same table in the White House, seemed to be on the outside looking in on the first major American AI venture in the South Caucasus.
Now it wants to be back in. Hikmet Hajiyev, Azerbaijan's Presidential aide who heads foreign policy, set out the argument last week. Exporting power is one thing, he says.
Turning it into something more valuable is another. "One thing is to export a raw material, in this case, we can call it raw electrons and electricity," he explained. "Another thing is to transform it into semi-fabricates... data centers, of course.
And turn it into bits and bytes." The key elements, according to his explanation, are cheap electricity, good location and fewer regulations. "We have cheap electricity here," he said, "and we have less bureaucracy." The government expects a surge in renewable generation: "within just a few years, we will have an additional 2 GW of renewable energy capacity, followed by another 8 GW a couple of years later, all available for export." Those figures are large against a system with about 8.4GW of total installed capacity, and they would more than double it. ACWA Power of Saudi Arabia and Masdar of Abu Dhabi are building solar farms, and hydropower in the liberated territories adds to the mix.
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