The Pulse
NVIDIA Partner Firebird Secures License for 45,000 GPUs in Kazakhstan
Firebird has secured a U.S. export license for 45,000 NVIDIA Grace Blackwell GPUs for a project in Kazakhstan with Kazakhtelecom. The first phase at Data Center Valley is under construction and targets a commercial launch in the third quart
AI.info Team · Written with AI · fact-checked ·
“President Tokayev’s vision gave us the confidence to think bigger about what we can build together.”
Razmig Hovaghimian, co-founder and CEO of Firebird
Firebird has secured a U.S. export license for 45,000 NVIDIA Grace Blackwell GPUs for an AI infrastructure project in Kazakhstan, NVIDIA said on October 22. The first phase, being built with Kazakhtelecom at the country’s Data Center Valley, targets a commercial launch in the third quarter of 2027. The signing ceremony took place at Kazakhstan’s presidential palace during NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang’s visit to Astana on October 23.
45,000 GPUs are licensed, not yet deployed
The export license permits Firebird to bring the 45,000 GPUs into Kazakhstan; it does not mean the full quantity is installed or operating. NVIDIA says construction on the project’s first phase is underway, but its blog post does not give a GPU delivery or installation schedule. The distinction matters: the announced figure describes licensed hardware, while the near-term milestone is a commercial launch planned for the third quarter of 2027.
Firebird is expanding into Kazakhstan after building its first AI factory in Armenia. NVIDIA describes the Kazakh project as a partnership with Kazakhtelecom, which will operate at Data Center Valley. Firebird’s planned second phase would bring its total potential AI infrastructure capacity in Kazakhstan to approximately 500 megawatts; the post does not say when that phase would begin.
Kazakhtelecom is adding separate GPU capacity
The Firebird license is part of a wider buildout, but it is not the same as Kazakhtelecom’s own deployments. NVIDIA says the telecom company has already deployed 400 NVIDIA H200 GPUs and 480 NVIDIA B300 GPUs in Astana and Almaty. Those installed systems are distinct from Firebird’s licensed 45,000 Grace Blackwell GPUs.
For next year, Kazakhtelecom plans to deploy more than 1,000 GPUs at Data Center Valley and more than 1,000 NVIDIA Vera Rubin GPUs in the Ekibastuz region, according to NVIDIA. The company says the infrastructure is intended to serve businesses, developers and institutions. The blog post does not specify the models or workloads those users will run.
Firebird plans a local research and startup arm
Alongside the data-center project, Firebird plans to establish Firebird Labs Kazakhstan. NVIDIA says the lab is intended to support local startups, research and talent development through funding, access to computing resources and research partnerships. The company has not announced a launch date or the scale of the lab’s initial funding.
The plan ties a large hardware authorization to a more specific local commitment: support for researchers and startups, not only compute capacity for customers. But the immediate test is physical and scheduled—the first phase is under construction, with commercial operations targeted for the third quarter of 2027. Until then, 45,000 remains the number covered by the export license, not a count of GPUs already running in Kazakhstan.