Kazakhstan can be 'an AI factory hub for all of Europe,' says Jensen Huang in Astana, as Nvidia backs Kazakh-founded Higgsfield
What happened? On his first visit to Kazakhstan on 23 October 2026, Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang told a fireside chat in Astana with Zhaslan Madiyev, deputy prime minister and head of Kazakhstan's Ministry of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development, that the country is "going to be a hub, a computing hub, an AI factory hub for all of Europe". Instead of only exporting energy, he said, Kazakhstan could "transform the energy into intelligence and export intelligence". He also met President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, who has declared 2026 the country's Year of Digitalization and Artificial Intelligence, and pitched Kazakhstan as a global hub for physical AI.
The infrastructure behind it: The visit coincided with US AI cloud company Firebird AIDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → signing an investment agreement with the Kazakh government. Nvidia said Firebird has secured a US export licence for 45,000 Nvidia Grace Blackwell GPUs and is building the first phase of a facility with state telecom operator KazakhtelecomDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → at Data Center Valley in Ekibastuz, targeting commercial launch in the third quarter of 2027. A planned second phase would take Firebird's potential capacity in the country to about 500 MW. Kazakhtelecom already runs 880 Nvidia GPUs in Astana and Almaty. The project builds on accords worth up to $10 billion signed in June, and Kazakh officials hope compute exports could eventually bring in at least $3 billion a year.
The startups: Nvidia and TCV joined an extension of the Series B of San Francisco-based Higgsfield, the AI video company co-founded by Kazakh entrepreneur Yerzat Dulat, which has more than 300 people in Kazakhstan and raised $400 million at a $5.4 billion valuation in August. The amount was not disclosed. "The first thing and the last thing is you invest in people, not companies," Huang said of its founders. Separately, ride-hailing company inDrive signed a memorandum of understanding with Pony.ai and Nvidia to explore robotaxis in Astana, with tests with a safety operator planned for the first half of 2027, inDrive told TechCrunch. Astana HubDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, the country's international tech park, presented Startup City, a platform for startup support, venture financing and international partnerships, during the visit.
Context: Huang also pressed his "sovereign AI" message, calling domestic language models a national security concern. Sceptics point to execution risk: the 1 GW Ekibastuz figure is a long-term target, and the Carnegie Endowment has warned that unreliable grids, limited international connections and regulation could constrain Central Asia's digital plans, the South China Morning Post reported.
Sources: CNBC · NVIDIA blog · The Astana Times · TechCrunch · The Times of Central Asia · South China Morning Post
