Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang Backs Kazakhstan AI Push as Firebird Inks GPU Deal

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang visited Kazakhstan on October 23 to meet President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and discuss computing investment and physical AI, while Firebird signed an investment agreement with the country after securing a US export license for 45,000 Grace Blackwell GPUs. The first phase of Firebird's project with Kazakhtelecom is under construction at Data Center Valley in Ekibastuz for a targeted Q3 2027 commercial launch, adding to the 400 H200 and 480 B300 GPUs Kazakhtelecom has already deployed in Astana and Almaty. Freedom Holding CEO Timur Turlov said his company is ordering its first Nvidia B300 cluster for a public GPU cloud planned for 2027 and is building the Akashi data center campus in Astana with a planned capacity of up to 100 megawatts. Freedom Holding's broader plans include a $2B sovereign AI hub announced in November 2025, though an August regulatory filing described the arrangement as nonbinding and noted it would require significant financing. During the visit, San Francisco-based AI video company Higgsfield announced that Nvidia and TCV joined an extension of its Series B round for an undisclosed sum, following an August raise of $400M at a $5.4B valuation. "Instead of just exporting energy, in the future, you could transform energy into intelligence and export intelligence." — Jensen Huang