ItInsightsWorld: Kazakhstan AI Infrastructure Gains Scale as Firebird and NVIDIA Advance Vera Rubin Plans

Build-out, licences and first commercial milestones

This ItInsightsWorld briefing centres on how Firebird and NVIDIA are extending Kazakhstan AI infrastructure through a programme that includes tens of thousands of GPUs, added data centre capacity and the Vera Rubin platform. Firebird has obtained a US export licence for 45,000 NVIDIA Grace Blackwell GPUs. Its first phase is under construction at Data Center Valley in Ekibastuz together with Kazakhtelecom, with commercial operations scheduled for the third quarter of 2027.

The plan was disclosed alongside Jensen Huang’s Kazakhstan visit on 23 October 2026. In Astana, Huang met Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, and the discussion included Zhaslan Madiyev, the minister of artificial intelligence and digital development.

How the capacity figures relate

A second Firebird phase, according to the NVIDIA announcement, could take total capacity in Kazakhstan to approximately 500 MW. Data Center Valley has a longer-term target of 1 GW. Previous agreements valued at $10 billion between Kazakhstan’s government, Firebird and NVIDIA covered a computing cluster of up to 100,000 GPUs. The different numbers describe separate stages and scopes rather than capacity already installed.

August updates from Kazakhstan’s government confirmed construction of an initial 50 MW facility. They also reported acquisition of a 215 MW electrical substation and expected the first facility to enter operation in June 2027.

Kazakhtelecom has already deployed 400 NVIDIA H200 GPUs and 480 NVIDIA B300 GPUs in Astana and Almaty. In 2027 the operator plans more than 1,000 additional GPUs at Data Center Valley and deployments exceeding 1,000 Vera Rubin GPUs in the Ekibastuz region.

The Vera Rubin architecture pairs next-generation GPUs with the Vera CPU and high-bandwidth memory in rack-scale computing systems. As eeNews Europe noted earlier this year, NVIDIA had begun supplying customer samples of Vera Rubin hardware before broader deployments.

Applications, labs and energy considerations

The programme extends beyond physical data centres. Firebird plans to establish Firebird Labs Kazakhstan, a structure that would give startups and researchers computing access, funding and research partnerships.

NVIDIA also disclosed an investment in Higgsfield, a Kazakhstan-founded company developing generative AI tools for video and image production. The amount was not disclosed. Higgsfield intends to expand computing capacity through Vera Rubin infrastructure supplied by cloud service providers.

During the visit, Huang discussed whether Kazakhstan energy resources could support AI computing services for international customers. Zhaslan Madiyev outlined interest in Kazakh-language models and AI use in manufacturing, mining, agriculture and logistics.

Energy availability remains central to economics. Kazakhstan’s government identifies competitive electricity costs and access to existing power infrastructure as advantages for the Ekibastuz development, while the proposed expansion would require substantial additional generating and distribution capacity.

What to watch

The ItInsightsWorld view is that the programme now consists of clusters already operating, facilities under construction, planned hardware rollouts and a much larger proposed expansion. The first Firebird commercial launch in 2027 will show how rapidly these commitments can be converted into available computing capacity.