Kazakhstan signs $10B AI data centre deal with Nvidia-backed Firebird
What's the deal? Kazakhstan has signed a set of accords with Firebird, a US startup backed by Nvidia, to build artificial intelligence data centres that could draw up to $10B in investment. The centrepiece is "Data Center Valley," planned for Ekibastuz, an energy hub in the country's northeast.
The first phase is set at roughly $5B, including $1B from state-owned operator KazakhtelecomDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, and aims to bring a 125-megawatt site online commercially in 2027.
The accords were signed in Astana by Prime Minister Olzhas Bektenov, Nvidia vice president Rev Lebaredian, and Firebird co-founders Razmig Hovaghimian and Alexander Yesayan. At full scale, officials say the build will host at least 300 megawatts of computing — scaling toward a gigawatt — with as many as 100,000 Nvidia GPUs, including its newest GB300 and Vera Rubin chips.
Why now? The deal is part of a global scramble among energy-rich but capital-light nations to secure AI infrastructure. Governments from the Gulf to Southeast Asia are striking similar pacts to avoid dependence on a handful of US and Chinese cloud providers.
Kazakhstan, an oil-and-gas producer, is offering cheap power and land in exchange for chips and know-how it lacks. Nvidia's GPUs remain the scarce resource every aspiring hub wants, making the chipmaker's involvement a key draw.
What could go wrong? The headline "$10B" deserves scrutiny. It represents a potential total across several agreements, not a single committed cheque. The core documents include a strategic cooperation framework — which sets intent, not obligation — and a binding term sheet between Kazakhtelecom and Firebird for the data centres.
Even the firmer $5B first phase depends on financing, power delivery, and chip shipments landing on schedule. Officials project $3B a year in computing exports, but those are targets, not installed capacity.
Many grand regional-hub plans stall between the signing ceremony and the build. Memoranda are easy; financed, powered, chip-stocked data centres are hard.
The signal: A pattern is emerging: sovereign AI deals anchored by Nvidia hardware, announced at $10B-scale, with much of the commitment still in memorandum form. The Philippines unveiled a similar US-backed hub plan recently.
Firebird's pitch is speed — it says it stood up a flagship AI factory in Armenia in about six months, due online in July. Whether Data Center Valley becomes real infrastructure or stays a press release will depend on what gets funded after the cameras leave.
Read more: TheNextWeb
