Epress.am News from Armenia
A hitherto unknown company, Firebird AI, announced on November 20 that it will open one of the world’s most advanced AI clusters in Armenia by mid-2026. The news has been heralded as a major step toward attracting American investment to the country. It is the first $500 million investment project to follow Armenia’s signing of the U.S.-backed TRIPP agreement in August. For this AI factory, the United States granted export licenses for Nvidia GPUs, making Armenia the third developing country—after Saudi Arabia and the UAE—to receive such exclusive rights.
The political enthusiasm surrounding Firebird’s project, however, smokescreens a multitude of issues that such a large-scale enterprise could raise, particularly for the environment and public health in Armenia. These risks become especially alarming when we examine how AI data centers in other countries have affected surrounding communities.
Clouds Are Material
Data centers are often imagined as weightless engines of the digital economy. Yet “the cloud” is anything but immaterial. It is built on warehouses filled with machines that operate around the clock, consuming enormous resources—often rivaling those of heavy industry or aviation.
During the first phase of Firebird AI’s operations in Armenia, a 100-megawatt data center with 6,144 GPUs is planned. The facility will require an estimated 876 gigawatt-hours of electricity annually just to run the servers. This would amount to roughly 12–13 percent of Armenia’s total annual electricity consumption. According to Eurasianet’s estimates, the facility would use as much electricity as 120,000 people consume in an entire year. And this figure accounts only for server operation; an additional 5–10 percent of energy would be required to run supporting infrastructure such as cooling systems. Given Armenia’s hot summers, cooling demand could be even higher.
The issue is not only the volume of electricity consumed, but also how it is consumed. AI training workloads cause rapid spikes and drops in power usage. Armenia’s electricity grid is not designed to handle such fluctuations, raising serious concerns about disruptions to power delivery for nearby homes.
Armenian Networks of Electricity did not respond to Epress.am’s inquiry about whether Firebird AI has applied to connect to the grid or whether the system can meet the project’s energy demands. The power grid is already under strain due to gentrification-driven construction in Yerevan and other regions. Regular outages are often attributed to the grid’s inability to cope with rising demand.
According to Eurasianet, the AI data center will also require more than 1,892,700 liters of water per day for cooling. The Ministry of Environment has confirmed that Firebird AI has not received any permits from the ministry. “The company hasn’t filed any documents regarding its Environmental Impact Assessment,” the ministry told Epress.am.
Without environmental protection protocols in place, there is no way to know where this enormous volume of water would be sourced from, what cooling technology would be used, whether the water would remain in a closed-loop system, or whether runoff would occur. These questions become especially urgent when examined in light of international precedents. A recent Futurism investigation documented growing concerns surrounding an Amazon Web Services data center in eastern Oregon, where residents reported increased rates of rare cancers, miscarriages, kidney disease, and other serious illnesses. The facility withdraws large volumes of groundwater for cooling and returns warmed water into local systems—a process critics say can concentrate nitrates and reintroduce contaminants into drinking-water supplies. All that is currently known is that Hrazdan has been selected as the site due to its existing infrastructure. Firebird AI has already purchased land frohttps://eurasianet.org/armenia-nvidia-chip-transfer-approved-major-ai-project-confidently-moving-forwardm private owners for construction. However, local residents have not been consulted, and no public hearings have been held.
A spokesperson for the Hrazdan municipality declined to provide information to Epress.am, stating: “It’s a big international company. I’m sure they know what they are doing.” AI data centers are typically a significant disturbance to nearby communities. Cooling towers, backup generators, and industrial air-handling units generate persistent low-frequency noise that disrupts residential areas.
Another unresolved issue is the disposal of deteriorated hardware. Data center equipment degrades rapidly, with servers, chips, and cooling systems typically replaced every three to five years, generating continuous streams of electronic waste. Discarded components contain toxic materials—including heavy metals, flame retardants, and rare-earth elements—which require specialized and tightly regulated recycling processes.
Circumventing Environmental Checks With Big Promises
It appears that Firebird AI has bypassed state monitoring and evaluation mechanisms by offering a $500 million investment and the promise of just 50 jobs in Hrazdan. How was this possible?
Armenian law on Environmental Impact Assessment requires a wide range of businesses—from mining operations and hydropower plants to dairy producers and cattle farms—to undergo rigorous scrutiny before receiving permits. Companies must submit 29 documents detailing: the project proposal, including physical characteristics, resource requirements, materials, technologies, emissions, leaks, waste, physical impacts, and emergency risks; measures to prevent, mitigate, or compensate for environmental and health damage etc.. AI data centers are not explicitly listed under this law—perhaps because the legislation was adopted in 2014, before AI factories existed at their current scale.
Another way public oversight appears to have been avoided is through the decision to place Firebird AI’s activities under the supervision of an investment foundation called Armenia Enterprise. Although founded by the government, the organization lacks effective oversight mechanisms. The Ministry of High-Tech Industry, which has presented Firebird’s arrival as a major institutional achievement, redirected Epress.am’s inquiries to Armenia Enterprise. Armenia Enterprise, in turn, states that its mission is to assist international investors by easing what it calls “Armenian bureaucracy.” Firebird AI has not responded to interview requests. Its contact details were obtained only through personal connections, and its official website lists no contact information. The company also appears to lack a track record in building AI data centers. Its statement names the Afeyan Foundation for Armenia as the “founding investor.” The foundation’s principal is venture capitalist Noubar Afeyan, who played a key role in launching the biotech firm Moderna.
Keeping pace with technological development is important. But doing so requires more than simply granting a green light to American investors—especially when those investors may have strong incentives to relocate. At least 16 data center projects in the United States, worth a combined $64 billion, have been blocked or delayed due to local opposition over rising electricity costs. Recently, a coalition of more than 230 environmental organizations urged the U.S. Congress to halt the proliferation of energy-hungry data centers. If the Armenian government intends to offer refuge to such businesses, it must at the very least establish clear, enforceable regulations to protect local communities and the environment.