Kazakhstan is about to receive a very large delivery of computing power. Nvidia announced that Firebird, a US-based AI infrastructure firm, has obtained a US export license to ship 45,000 NVIDIA Grace Blackwell GPUs to the country.
The chips will power the first phase of an AI data center project in Kazakhstan. The timing was deliberate: the news landed while Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang was in the country for meetings at the highest level of government.
What Firebird is building
The project is a partnership between Firebird and Kazakhtelecom, the country’s telecom operator. The site is the Data Center Valley in Ekibastuz.
Commercial operations are expected to begin by Q3 2027.
The 45,000 GPUs cover only the initial phase. Firebird’s later phases could push total AI infrastructure capacity to approximately 500 MW.
Nvidia made the announcement on October 22-23, 2026. The news coincided with Huang’s visit, which included a signing ceremony for Firebird’s investment agreement.
Huang goes to Astana
On October 23, Huang sat down with Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev in Astana. The talks focused on deepening collaboration between Nvidia and Kazakh companies.
Kazakhstan awarded him the Order of Dostyk (First Class) in recognition of his contributions to the country’s AI ecosystem.
The Firebird deal also builds on work already underway. Kazakhtelecom has deployed 400 H200 GPUs and 480 B300 GPUs across Astana and Almaty.
More is planned before the Ekibastuz site even comes online. The roadmap includes more than 1,000 additional GPUs and over 1,000 Vera Rubin GPUs by 2027.
Vera Rubin is Nvidia’s next platform after Grace Blackwell.
The bigger investment picture
Earlier agreements signed in 2026 could facilitate up to $10 billion in investments for AI initiatives in Kazakhstan.
Firebird’s investment agreement is one of the first concrete pieces to slot into that larger framework. The 45,000-GPU first phase gives the broader ambition a physical anchor.
What this means
The most important detail may be the export license itself. Firebird needed US government sign-off to move these chips, which means Washington reviewed the deal and allowed it to proceed.
The structure here is also worth noting. A US-based infrastructure firm partnering with a national telecom operator gives the project both American oversight and local institutional backing.
For Kazakhstan, the payoff is a shot at becoming a regional AI compute hub. Pairing an existing base of H200 and B300 chips with a large Grace Blackwell deployment and planned Vera Rubin capacity would give it a layered, multi-generation setup.
The Q3 2027 target is the first checkpoint to watch.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Diego Almada Lopez. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.