Armenian IT sector`s products, profits flow out of Armenia - Hayk Yesayan

ArmInfo. Unfortunately, 80-90% of IT companies operating in Armenia are currently focused on sales per person per hour. This means that the product created in Armenia doesn't actually stay in the country and isn't monetized locally. Hayk Yesayan, CEO and co-founder of Team Telecom Armenia, stated this on September 24 at a panel discussion titled "Armenia's New Reality as an Economic Shock," in response to a question about how Armenian companies are positioning themselves in the rapidly changing world of internet technology.

"We're simply engaged in programming, which is exported, and well-known Armenian companies are, for the most part, registered abroad. The profits they generate remain abroad," Yesayan said, expressing hope that the situation could improve as a result of legislative initiatives adopted in the country.

Regarding the telecom sector, Yesayan believes that this sector of the economy is perhaps more stagnant, with annual growth of only 5-6%. A positive factor is that "from a communications perspective, Armenia has always had the opportunity to use communications transit services from three borders," the expert continued.

Armenia has become a significant transit country for IT over the past 3-5 years. Approximately 85% of internet traffic passing through Armenia is not used domestically. This infrastructure allows us to avoid internet access issues and create a large data center like Firebird (an AI cloud company headquartered in San Francisco and Yerevan - Ed.)," stated Hayk Yesayan.

As a reminder, in June of this year, it was announced that the Government of the Republic of Armenia, NVIDIA, Firebird, and Team Group would join forces to create the region's most powerful supercomputer data center based on artificial intelligence (AI) solutions. $500 million will be invested in the implementation of this large-scale project.

It was noted that, with the support of the Armenian government and to accelerate technological innovation and transform the country into a regional AI hub, Firebird plans to launch a data center equipped with thousands of NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs in 2026.  The project initially provides the ability to scale capacity to more than 100 megawatts.  This strategic partnership between the Republic of Armenia and leading local and international IT and technology companies should play a key role in building a robust technological future for the country.

According to statistics, Armenia's information and communications technology (ICT) sector grew by 12.6% year-on-year in the first half of 2025 (versus 10.4% growth a year ago), generating revenue of 552.1 billion drams ($1.4 billion). The dominant segment of Armenia's ICT sector-the services sector-accounts for 68.8%, or 380 billion drams (an annual increase of 19.9%). Of this, the largest share is represented by information technology - 298.4 billion drams (an annual increase of 25.6%), while the telecommunications segment accounts for 77.2 billion drams (an annual increase of 2%).  The share of the production ICT segment is absolutely negligible (0.02%) or 105.7 million drams, which is 67.6% lower than the year-ago figure. Revenue in the ICT sector in the trade sector for the reporting period decreased by 0.4% to 172 billion drams.