Deyron Labs graphic: NVIDIA says Firebird secured a US export license for 45,000 Grace Blackwell GPUs in Kazakhstan, first phase targeted for Q3 2027, about 500 MW potential capacity

What happened

NVIDIA published a blog post about Jensen Huang’s visit to Astana, Kazakhstan, saying it “coincided with new AI infrastructure commitments anchored by NVIDIA compute”. The post says Huang visited on Friday 23 October 2026; its byline reads 22 October, and its metadata shows publication in the early hours of 23 October (UTC). The central claim is NVIDIA’s: that the company Firebird has “secured a U.S. export license for 45,000 NVIDIA Grace Blackwell GPUs”.

Key details

All details are from NVIDIA’s post, checked on 23 October 2026. We did not find a statement from the US government or Firebird on the license, so the license claim rests on NVIDIA’s account.

  • Firebird: the first phase is under construction with Kazakhtelecom at Data Center Valley, “targeting commercial launch in the third quarter of 2027”. A planned second phase would bring potential capacity in Kazakhstan to “approximately 500 megawatts”. An investment agreement with the Kazakh government was signed at the presidential palace.
  • Kazakhtelecom: NVIDIA says it has deployed 400 NVIDIA H200 and 480 NVIDIA B300 GPUs in Astana and Almaty, and plans more than 1,000 GPUs in Data Center Valley and more than 1,000 NVIDIA Vera Rubin GPUs in the Ekibastuz region next year.
  • Higgsfield: the AI video startup is expanding infrastructure with NVIDIA Vera Rubin through cloud providers; NVIDIA says it is making an investment in the startup, with no amount given.
  • Statements: Huang is quoted saying “Your country’s data is your natural resource. It belongs to you.” Huang also mentioned NVIDIA’s OpenShell as a way to contain AI agents by limiting file and tool access.

Why it matters

Advanced AI chips are subject to US export licensing, so a license of this size for a Central Asian project is notable for how AI compute capacity is spreading outside the US, China and the Gulf. The details that would show how significant it is, including license conditions and who the end users will be, are not in NVIDIA’s post.

Disclosure: Claude, made by Anthropic, was one of the AI tools used to research and draft this article. All facts are attributed to NVIDIA’s blog post and have not been independently verified.

Sources

  1. Kazakhstan Expands Compute for Its AI Future Primary source , NVIDIA