AI Chips for 99 Years of Armenian Territory
Trump could wake up and revoke the license. For that, Pashinyan gave 99 years of territory.
Asbed walks through a Wall Street Journal report describing how the White House promised to authorize advanced NVIDIA AI chips for Armenia, tied to the Firebird AI data center, as leverage to bring Yerevan to sign onto TRIPP (Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity), the corridor Azerbaijan and Turkey call the Zangezur Corridor. The framing is what makes the moment land: these chips have to be re-upped every three to five years as they age, and the licensing can be revoked at any time and for any reason.
As Asbed puts it, Trump could wake up one morning, decide the deal is not good for America, and stop it. For those ephemeral promises, he argues, Pashinyan agreed to a 99-year arrangement over Armenian territory that serves Azerbaijan and Turkey. It is a durability mismatch at the heart of the bargain: revocable access to fast-aging technology weighed against a long-term geopolitical concession through Syunik.
The clip connects to the broader stakes the hosts return to throughout the episode. TRIPP is a U.S.-backed transit project meant to link Asia to Europe through Armenia while bypassing Russia and Iran, serving American interests in critical minerals and logistics independent of Moscow and Tehran. Against that strategic weight, Hovik questions whether a data center offers Armenia any real advantage, noting it cannot be used for defense and is bound by U.S. export controls. The result, they suggest, is a PR win dressed as an AI future, exchanged for something far harder to reverse.
Transcript
Asbed Bedrossian: Hovik, the Wall Street Journal had an interesting article detailing how the White House promised to authorize these NVIDIA AI chips to use in Armenia, the whole Firebird AI thing, this data center which has started in Hayastan, etc., to bring Armenia basically to the table to sign the TRIPP Zangezur Corridor project. This is back in August of 2025. So basically, in exchange for some AI chips and new technologies, you know that these AI chips have to be basically re-upped every three to five years, right? They get old. There are newer versions and everything, so they have to be redone every few years. and for which the licensing can be revoked anytime and for any reason. I mean, Trump could wake up in the morning and say he doesn't feel like that licensing is a good deal for America and he can stop it.
Hovik Manucharyan: Yeah.
Asbed Bedrossian: So for these ephemeral promises, basically, Pashinyan agreed to give 99 years of Armenian territory for the purposes and the benefit of Azerbaijan and Turkey.
Hovik Manucharyan: is incomprehensible to me how this data center would be of any strategic value to