Jensen Huang, NVIDIA’s founder and chief executive, visited Astana on Friday as Firebird signed an investment agreement with Kazakhstan’s government for a planned expansion of artificial-intelligence computing infrastructure.
Huang met President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev at the presidential palace and joined Zhaslan Madiyev, the deputy prime minister and minister responsible for AI and digital development, for a public discussion at the Alem AI programme. The visit placed the proposed computing build-out alongside the government’s wider push to develop artificial intelligence and digital services.
Tokayev described AI and digitalisation as national priorities and said 2026 had been declared Kazakhstan’s Year of Digitalisation and Artificial Intelligence. Huang said Kazakhstan could become a global hub for Physical AI, a term used in the discussion about applying computing to systems such as robotics. Factories, mining, agriculture, transport and logistics were among the areas raised during the conversation.
Agreement sets out a planned build-out
The visit coincided with a signing ceremony for Firebird’s investment agreement with the government, held at the presidential palace. The agreement was presented as part of a prospective computing expansion rather than as confirmation that the full new infrastructure is already operating.
Under the announced plan, Firebird has secured a United States export licence for 45,000 NVIDIA Grace Blackwell graphics-processing units. Its first phase is under construction with Kazakhtelecom at Data Center Valley, with a commercial launch targeted for the third quarter of 2027. That is a stated target, not an operational date that has been reached.
A proposed second phase would take Firebird’s total potential AI infrastructure capacity in Kazakhstan to about 500 megawatts. Firebird also plans to establish Firebird Labs Kazakhstan, intended to support local startups, research and talent development through funding, access to computing and research partnerships. The announcement does not set out a date for that proposed second phase or for the planned laboratory.
Existing capacity and future commitments
The event drew a clear distinction between infrastructure already deployed and later commitments. Kazakhtelecom has deployed 400 NVIDIA H200 units and 480 NVIDIA B300 units in Astana and Almaty. Those installations are separate from the Data Center Valley phase, which remains under construction.
Kazakhtelecom also plans further deployment next year at Data Center Valley and in the Ekibastuz region. The figures associated with those future deployments, like the Firebird capacity proposal, should be read as plans that depend on construction and implementation rather than as completed additions to the country’s computing estate.
At the presidential meeting, the two sides discussed NVIDIA’s relationships with Firebird AI KZ, Kazakhtelecom and Higgsfield. At the Alem AI event, NVIDIA also announced an investment in Higgsfield, a Kazakhstan-founded technology company. No financial terms were set out in the public account of that investment.
What the announcement means now
The immediate development is the agreement and the high-level visit, not the completion of a 500-megawatt facility. The detailed plans point to a future combination of computing infrastructure, local technology companies and government backing. Their eventual scale will depend on the delivery of the first Data Center Valley phase, any subsequent construction and the practical availability of the announced hardware.
For now, the Astana events give Kazakhstan’s AI ambitions a more specific commercial framework. They also leave important implementation milestones ahead: the first phase’s targeted 2027 launch, decisions on a second phase and the delivery of the support promised for startups and research.
