Armenia is preparing for a wave of US-led investment that could exceed $13 billion, nearly doubling the country’s annual economic output and easing its long-standing reliance on Russia, Bloomberg reports.
As the publication notes, US Vice President James David Vance’s visit to Armenia this week, where he signed a $9 billion civil energy partnership agreement, marked a potentially significant deepening of Washington’s ties with the small former Soviet republic.
A separate expansion of a $4 billion artificial intelligence project could also help transform the outlook for Armenia’s $27 billion economy.
“These figures alone are quite significant,” said Dmitry Dolgin, chief economist for the CIS at ING Bank. “If these initiatives instill confidence and create a sense of long-term stability, this could increase Armenia’s attractiveness for portfolio investment, direct investment, and even remittances.”
As Bloomberg notes, the agreements with Armenia and Vance’s visit to neighboring Azerbaijan the following day underscored the escalating geopolitical struggle for influence in the Caucasus region, a key trade and energy corridor linking China to Europe via Central Asia and under Moscow’s strict control for decades.
These agreements took place in August, when US President Donald Trump hosted Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev at the White House to sign a preliminary peace agreement aimed at ending the decades-long conflict in the Nagorno-Karabakh region. This agreement includes a plan to open the “Trump Corridor for International Peace and Prosperity”—a transport corridor that would connect Azerbaijan with the Nakhchivan exclave via Armenia.
Turkey, which has a defense cooperation agreement with Azerbaijan, is preparing to open its border with Armenia, closed since 1993, for the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union and establish diplomatic relations. The European Union is also strengthening ties with Armenia, which has announced plans to join the EU, though it is currently part of a customs union led by Russia. Yields on Armenia’s dollar-denominated bonds maturing in 2031 fell 4 basis points on Thursday, reaching their lowest level in nearly three months, Bloomberg reports.
According to Bloomberg, the nuclear cooperation agreement creates a legal basis for American companies to export nuclear technology to Armenia and replace the Soviet-era Metsamor nuclear power plant, which provides about 40% of the country’s electricity to approximately 3 million people. Metsamor is operated by Russia’s state-owned nuclear corporation Rosatom.
On the eve of Vance’s visit, Rosatom representatives met with Armenian leaders in Moscow, proposing what they called a “comprehensive partnership” to build new nuclear capabilities.
An artificial intelligence project developed by Firebird Inc., a partnership between the American company and Nvidia Corp., plans to expand its fleet of graphics processing units (GPUs) to approximately 50,000 by the end of 2026, using the chipmaker’s next-generation GB300 systems. Firebird plans to distribute the majority of its computing power to customers worldwide, positioning Armenia as a competitive platform for exporting AI solutions.
The investment announcements give Pashinyan a boost ahead of Armenia’s parliamentary elections on June 7. In May, he plans to host dozens of political leaders in Yerevan for the European Political Community summit. Together, the potential projects, worth $13 billion, exceed previous foreign investment in Armenia.
They pave the way for the government to attract American capital and technology into key sectors, even if these funds are not fully realized. “When companies decide to invest billions of dollars in Armenia, it generates ideas for others,” said Firebird co-founder Alexander Yesayan. “Many people knew about Armenia, but hadn’t thought about…” Investing on this scale makes a difference.