"Armenia: the gamble of technological sovereignty" by Carlo Coppola
Հայաստան․ Տեխնոլոգիական ինքնիշխանության որոնումներում: Կառլո Կոպպոլայի հոդված.
YEREVAN — February 2026. The arrival of U.S. Vice President JD Vance in Armenia on February 9 marks a turning point in relations between Washington and Yerevan. It is the highest-level American visit to independent Armenia and comes at a moment of profound geopolitical transition in the South Caucasus.
While Vance met Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan to discuss regional stability, security, and economic cooperation, another meeting unfolded with long-term strategic implications. Armenia’s Minister of High-Tech Industry, Mkhitar Hayrapetyan, sat down with senior representatives of Amazon Web Services (AWS) to advance a partnership centered on artificial intelligence, cloud infrastructure, and satellite communications.
Together, the parallel talks suggest that Armenia’s future alignment with the United States may be defined as much by digital infrastructure as by diplomacy.
According to Armenia’s Ministry of High-Tech Industry, the meeting with AWS was not ceremonial but part of a structured, multi-year strategic dialogue. The partnership focuses on three core areas: artificial intelligence development, cloud modernization, and space-based connectivity.
Particularly significant is the emphasis on satellite communications and edge computing. Armenian officials view the integration of terrestrial cloud systems with low-earth orbit technologies as essential for digital resilience — from secure data management and critical infrastructure protection to smart manufacturing and remote services.
In a region historically shaped by physical corridors and energy routes, Armenia is now attempting to redesign its strategic map through digital architecture.
At the heart of the initiative lies the Artificial Intelligence Virtual Institute (AIVI), conceived not as a traditional academic center but as a platform for applied research, workforce training, and innovation.
AWS provides cloud infrastructure, technical expertise, and skills development programs aligned with international standards. The Armenian government has allocated 400 million drams (approximately $1 million) to subsidize computing costs for startups, universities, and research institutions using AWS services.
For a country of roughly three million people, the approach is pragmatic: rather than building costly domestic supercomputing facilities from scratch, Armenia is leveraging global cloud infrastructure while focusing domestic resources on talent and innovation.
The cooperation builds on a March 2023 memorandum between Armenia’s high-tech ministry and AWS, as well as the August 2025 US–Armenia agreement on artificial intelligence and semiconductors. The latter was signed in the broader diplomatic context of U.S.-mediated peace efforts between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
In official language, the objective is to introduce frontier technologies as drivers of economic modernization and national resilience. In strategic terms, this signals a shift in how Armenia defines sovereignty — no longer only in military or territorial terms, but increasingly in digital capacity and technological integration.
A symbolic bridge between the two sides is Sargis Ghazaryan, former Armenian ambassador to Italy and now International Affairs Lead at AWS. His trajectory illustrates the emergence of “tech diplomacy,” where geopolitical expertise and corporate cloud strategy intersect.
As states rely more heavily on global technology providers for critical systems, trust between governments and private infrastructure companies becomes a matter of national security.
Adding to the momentum, tech firm Firebird recently announced a $4 billion investment to deploy 50,000 GPUs in Armenia, aiming to build one of the world’s largest AI computing clusters. If realized, the project would transform the country into a regional hub for high-performance computing.
Such an investment underscores the scale of Armenia’s ambition: to position itself not merely as a consumer of digital services, but as a producer within the global AI ecosystem.
The technological push unfolds against a backdrop of shifting alliances. Armenia has frozen its participation in the Russian-led security bloc and is strengthening ties with Washington and Brussels.
Officials in Yerevan openly describe their objective as strengthening the country’s “technological sovereignty.” Each cloud deployment, training program, and AI research initiative becomes part of a broader strategy to anchor Armenia within the Euro-Atlantic technological sphere.
JD Vance’s visit signals that the United States sees this trajectory as strategically relevant. For Armenia, the wager is clear: in the 21st century, digital sovereignty may prove as decisive as territorial defense.
Carlo Coppola
