Firebird Opens Largest CIS Region Artificial Intelligence Factory in Armenia

Firebird, an emerging artificial intelligence cloud company, officially opened this week the largest AI plant in the CIS region, located in Armenia. The project, funded by NVIDIA and CoreWeave investments, represents a milestone for the company's global infrastructure and positions the country as a strategic technological hub in the Caucasus. The information was originally disclosed by TechCrunch, which highlighted the magnitude of the project.

The new facility, located on the outskirts of Yerevan, Armenian capital, will feature thousands of NVIDIA H100 GPUs, interconnected by a high-speed network designed to train large-scale language models and process computer-intensive workloads. According to Firebird, the plant will have an initial capacity of 200 performance petaflops, with expansion potential for 1 exaflop by 2026. Armenia's choice was not random: the country offers advantages such as relatively cheap hydroelectric power, cold climate for natural cooling and a skilled workforce in engineering and mathematics, heritage of the Soviet educational system.

The partnership with NVIDIA and CoreWeave is one of the pillars of the project. While NVIDIA will provide CUDA chips and software, CoreWeave, a computer cloud specialist for AI, will contribute to network architecture and cluster management. "We are building the backbone of the next generation of AI applications in emerging markets," said Viktor Petrosyan, CEO of Firebird, in a press release. "Armenia is the perfect place to serve both Eastern Europe and Central Asia, reducing latency and offering digital sovereignty to the region."

The CIS region, which includes countries such as Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus, has seen an accelerated growth in demand for AI computing, but lacks robust infrastructure. The arrival of Firebird fills a significant gap. Experts point out that the new plant can also attract local talent and encourage the development of AI startups in Armenia, which already has a flourishing technology ecosystem, with companies like PicsArt. However, there are challenges: electricity dependence and regional political stability are risk factors that can impact the operation.

The Firebird initiative also dialogues with broader movements of AI capacity expansion outside the traditional US and Europe hubs. Recently, other companies have announced investments in data centers in the Middle East and South America, as we address in our analysis of the global IA infrastructure race. With the inauguration, Firebird hopes not only to meet local demand, but also to export processing capacity to global customers, taking advantage of Armenia's international connectivity.

The total operation schedule is scheduled for the second half of 2025, with the first clusters already functioning in the testing phase. The company claims that the works were completed in record eight months, thanks to close collaboration with the Armenian government, which offered tax incentives and accelerated licenses. For the future, Firebird plans to expand the plant's capacity and develop a local AI training program in partnership with Armenian universities to create a specialized workforce.