Azerbaijan in final talks on AI data centre in Alat free zone, deputy minister says
Deputy Minister Rashad Hasanov said Azerbaijan is in the final stages of talks with hyperscale cloud firms on a data centre in the Alat Free Economic Zone, citing about 2 GW of surplus power, at a Baku forum on 25 September 2026.
Azerbaijan is "in the final stages of negotiations" to build a data centre in the Alat Free Economic Zone, Deputy Minister of Digital Development and Transport (Rəqəmsal İnkişaf və Nəqliyyat Nazirliyi) Rashad Hasanov said on 25 September 2026, addressing an artificial intelligence panel at the Second Azerbaijan International Investment Forum in Baku, according to Trend.Az and APA.
What the deputy minister said
- On the data centre: "We have held extensive, long-term discussions with numerous hyperscale data center and cloud companies" about the Alat project, Hasanov said, according to Trend.Az.
- Azerbaijan's case rests on a surplus electricity generation capacity of about 2 GW, extensive fibre-optic coverage, and a location between Europe and Asia, Trend.Az reported, citing Hasanov.
- Globally, more than 100 countries now have AI strategies, up from about 30 in 2019, Hasanov said; he added that "the speed and quality of implementation" is now the key issue, per APA.
- Government agencies already run AI tools including a student assistant in education, an AI-based cybersecurity centre, crop-disease forecasting in agriculture and a myGov AI assistant for citizen queries, he said, according to APA.
- The myGov platform "exceeds 4 million users" against a national population of 10 million, with a target of 5 million by year-end; government systems are migrating to the state's "gCloud" by the end of 2027, APA reported.
- Azerbaijan's digital development action plan for 2026-2028, approved by President Ilham Aliyev in February 2026, covers four pillars and 56 initiatives, according to APA.
Why it matters
An Alat data centre, if the talks conclude, would be Azerbaijan's first disclosed hyperscale computing project tied explicitly to AI — a step beyond the government's own digitisation platforms toward positioning the country as a regional compute and cloud hub built on its energy surplus, alongside similar infrastructure pushes elsewhere in the Caspian and Gulf regions.
What it means for Azerbaijani companies
Hasanov's remarks sit alongside Azerbaijan's Artificial Intelligence Strategy for 2025-2028, approved by presidential decree and reported by Report.az on 19 March 2025, which lists infrastructure accessibility among its priorities. Neither APA nor Trend.Az reported a signed contract, a named hyperscale partner, a project cost or a completion date for Alat, so the announcement should be read as a negotiation update rather than a committed facility; local cloud, hosting and AI-service providers have no confirmed capacity or tender to plan around yet.
