On June 15, 2026, the government of Kazakhstan, the American company Firebird, and NVIDIA signed a package of agreements worth $10 billion, which provides for the construction of the Valley Data Centre in Ekibastuz. However, the history of this deal began long before the official negotiations, with a chance meeting between two students while they were studying at the University of California, Berkeley.
We are talking about the co-founders of the Kazakh startup Q App, Elnar Salpekov and Askar Almukhametov. While studying at the University of California, Berkeley, they met serial entrepreneur Razmik Hovaghimian, who had previously sold the Viki streaming service to the Japanese company Rakuten, and later co-founded the Play Time venture fund with Lionel Messi.
About a month before the start of the negotiations, Hovaghimian contacted Salpekov and Almukhametov to ask about Kazakhstan’s potential as the location for Firebird’s next major investment project. The company considered several countries, including Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Tunisia, for the construction of large-scale data centres. The question sounded straightforward: was Kazakhstan worth entering, and how could the company reach key decision-makers? The students’ response and the team’s subsequent efforts played an important role in tipping the decision in Kazakhstan’s favour.
To focus on the project, the start-up’s co-founders took academic leave from Berkeley.
By that time, Q App had already been working with Kazakh universities and government institutions, developing a platform for university applications. The start-up had previously attracted $200,000 in investments with an estimated value of $2 million.
Over the course of a month, the team prepared materials highlighting Kazakhstan’s investment potential and took part in negotiations between Firebird and the Kazakh side. The effort also involved Zhaniya Kenzhegaliyeva, a student at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
The negotiations ended with a meeting with one of the president’s advisers. On April 29, negotiations took place at the head-of-state level with the participation of Firebird co-founders Razmik Berg Hovaghimian and Alexander Yesayan, as well as NVIDIA Vice President for Global AI Infrastructure Development Nicolo Martin Caprese.
The agreements signed on June 15 provide for the construction of the Data Centre Valley in the Pavlodar Region city of Ekibastuz on a 1,400-hectare site. The first phase will have a capacity of 300 MW, with plans to expand to 1 GW. The computing cluster will be powered by 100,000 next-generation GPUs, including NVIDIA GB300 and Vera Rubin systems. The first 125 MW data centre is scheduled to launch in the first half of 2027, and the second is planned for 2028.
In addition to the construction of data centres, the agreements include cooperation between Firebird and the Ministry of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development of Kazakhstan, the establishment of Firebird Labs Kazakhstan at Alem.ai, as well as a technical partnership between Firebird and Kazakhtelecom.
Kazakhtelecom Chairman Bagdat Musin has previously stated that the project is capable of generating at least $3 billion in annual export revenue through the sale of computing power. Firebird also expects that after the launch of the project, Kazakhstan will be able to become one of the world leaders in the development of artificial intelligence infrastructure.
It is worth noting that co-founders of Q App, both Elnar Salpekov and Askar Almukhametov, are graduates of Nazarbayev Intellectual Schools. Elnar Salpekov also studied for admission to a foreign university at the SmartestPrep educational centre. According to the centre’s founder, Laura Vaigorova, he later continued to seek her advice as an entrepreneur and mentor while developing his start-up.
“I remember Elnar well from the time he was preparing to apply to university abroad. Even then, it was clear that he thought on a very large scale. Today, I am very proud of what Elnar and Askar are doing for Kazakhstan. Young people like them are the strongest proof that investments in education can pay off many times over,” said Laura, founder of SmartestPrep.
The construction of the Data Centre Valley is considered one of the largest investment projects in the history of independent Kazakhstan. The involvement of young Kazakh entrepreneurs in the negotiations shows the role that international education, entrepreneurial experience, and professional networks can play in attracting major investments to the country.
