With an “Armenia wassup!” and rakish shimmy, Floridian pop sensation Jason Derulo opened the 2024 World Congress on Innovation & Expertise (WCIT) in Yerevan on Oct. 4. “The largest social gathering on the planet is true right here in Armenia tonight!” Derulo informed revelers within the capital’s Republic Sq., earlier than launching into his world hit “Soiled Speak” flanked by leather-clad, twerking dancers.
It was maybe a curious strategy to welcome some 3,000 delegates from 80 international locations to bat round expertise matters beneath the banner, “The Energy of Thoughts: AI Past Limits, Inside Ethics.” Panels included discussions on aerospace design, social media optimization, and cybersecurity. A various roster of audio system featured former MGM CEO Alex Yemenidjian and Rodrigo Messi, brother and enterprise supervisor of soccer famous person and TIME’s 2023 Athlete of the 12 months, Lionel. Elon Musk despatched a congratulatory message. (Telegram CEO Pavel Durov was on account of attend earlier than the French Police intervened.)
But if Derulo’s grandstanding was considerably incongruous with the thorny tech debates that adopted, few may begrudge Armenia for relishing its second within the highlight. It was, in truth, the second time Armenia has hosted WCIT prior to now 5 years, underscoring how this landlocked democracy of three million is recasting itself as a world expertise hub. Perched on the crossroads of Europe and Asia, Armenia has revamped its training curriculum to supply a gentle stream of STEM expertise and provided tax breaks to multinationals organising native operations. An illustrious roster has taken the bait, together with Amazon, Google, Cisco, IBM, Microsoft, Broadcom, and Nvidia.
“Again within the Soviet Union period, Armenia was actually very well-known as a hi-tech nation,” Armenian President Vahagn Khachaturyan tells TIME in his neo-Palladian official residence. “We have been thought of a Silicon Valley. Now we wish to get that popularity again.”
In fact, Armenia isn’t alone in making an attempt to journey the AI wave to prosperity—however the drivers listed below are removed from purely financial. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s conflict of alternative in Ukraine has wrought an immeasurable human toll, whereas roiling markets, disrupting provide chains, and sending inflation hovering throughout the globe. 1000’s of Russian professionals have since decamped in Armenia to each keep away from the army draft in addition to onerous Western sanctions, boosting an area financial system that grew 8.7% final 12 months. However an underappreciated corollary has been the evaporation of Moscow’s stabilizing safety presence in its personal yard.
In 2020, conflict broke out between Armenia and japanese neighbor Azerbaijan, resulting in a peace settlement that noticed virtually 2,000 Russian peacekeepers put in within the disputed area of Nagorno-Karabakh, a rolling highland famed for dragon-adorned carpets and piquant orange wine. However then Nagorno-Karabakh was seized by Baku in December 2022 and following a nine-month blockade over 100,000 Armenians have been forcibly expelled, throughout which these Russian peacekeepers stood idly by. “We really feel betrayed,” says Diana Gharibyan, 42, a mother-of-seven who fled from the regional capital, Stepanakert. “We got only a few minutes to depart.”
Requested whether or not the Ukraine battle lay behind Russia’s wavering, Khachaturyan can solely shrug. “The actual fact is that we would have liked the assistance of our companions when Azerbaijan attacked however didn’t get it,” he says. “So we have to make some conclusions.”
Most of that are grim. Final October, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken informed U.S. lawmakers that Azerbaijan could also be plotting to invade Armenia. In March, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan warned that Azerbaijan was seeking to begin “a brand new, large-scale conflict.”
In Yerevan, anxiousness is palpable. Aside from Azerbaijan to the east, Armenia has no diplomatic relations with western neighbor, Turkey, whereas to the north sits Georgia and to the south the Islamic Republic of Iran. Shifting geopolitical realities has spurred a wholesale recalibration of Armenia’s international coverage mixed with a zealous effort to internationalize the financial system to render the worth of any future battle intolerably excessive.
“Armenia is in a tricky neighborhood,” says Rev Lebaredian, a vice chairman at NVIDIA who opened its Yerevan workplace in 2022. “In my very own little means, I’m hoping to deliver some capabilities and assets so we will construct the Armenian financial system. If Armenia could be economically viable, that can assist with fixing lots of the different issues.”
It’s solely pure {that a} state penned in from all sides would search to look outward. And Armenia isn’t the primary besieged enclave to pursue safety by tying itself to the broader world. Tiny states from Singapore to Qatar and the United Arab Emirates have sought to keep away from being devoured up by bigger neighbors by reworking into banking and funding hubs, seeding award-winning airways, and internet hosting worldwide conferences and pop concert events.
At first blush, landlocked Armenia is an unlikely entrepot, although it does have a secret weapon, of which Lebaredian is a primary instance: a vibrant diaspora in nearly each nook of the globe, with some a million ethnic Armenians in California alone. Although it’s a boon borne from calamity.
Whereas the autumn of the Soviet Union was a seminal second in Armenia’s historical past, it pales compared to the genocide of 1915, when the Ottoman Empire systematically murdered some 600,000 to 1.5 million Armenians. Not solely did that atrocity scatter Armenians throughout the globe nevertheless it continues to outline regional dynamics. Turkish denials have successfully blocked Yerevan’s efforts to normalize relations with Ankara, which has backed Baku in its current offensives, even holding joint army drills final October in Nagorno-Karabakh and Nakhichevan, one other Azerbaijan-controlled area to Armenia’s west.
Certainly, in 2021 autocratic Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev revealed his intent to determine a land hall to Turkey by way of Nakhichevan by taking management of the southern Armenian area of Zangezur, “whether or not Armenia desires it or not,” including “if it doesn’t, we are going to remedy it by power.”
The institution of the Zangezur Hall would successfully seal off Armenia’s southern frontier with Iran and imply its solely open border can be with Georgia. Aside from Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan troops already management some 200 sq km of Armenia correct, which Aliyev tellingly refers to as “Western Azerbaijan.”
Those that skilled the Nagorno-Karabakh exodus are beneath no illusions. On Sept. 24–30 final 12 months, some 99% of the territory’s inhabitants fled beneath an Azerbaijan artillery barrage. Some 218 folks perished when a besieged gasoline distribution middle exploded, whereas some 70 others died through the fraught journey to Armenia. “Some youngsters needed to be in the identical car with their deceased dad or mum for greater than 40 hours through the journey,” says Alla Harutyunya, vice chairman of the Mission Armenia NGO. On her final go to to Nagorno-Karabakh in late 2022, Harutyunya seen the ambiance had modified. “I finished driving for a relaxation, however Russian troopers informed me to maintain going as they wouldn’t have the ability to defend me if Azerbaijani troops attacked,” she recollects.
Many refugees don’t really feel secure even amongst the tree-lined boulevards of Yerevan. “Through the displacement, the Azerbaijan troopers informed me, ‘The place are you going? We’re going to assault Armenia quickly. Do you suppose you’re escaping?’” says Gayane Movsisyan, a 55-year-old former military employee from Steparakert. “The Russian troopers have been simply standing there with their eyes down.”
Grigory Sysoev—Sputnik/AP
The dearth of Russian assist prompted Armenia in June to announce its withdrawal from the Moscow-led Collective Safety Treaty Group, which was established in 1992 and whose different members are Kazakhstan, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. Earlier than Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, at the very least 90% of arms bought by Armenia got here from Russia. Right now, it’s lower than 10%, and Armenia has been pressured to fill that hole by forging new friendships. India has emerged as Armenia’s high weapons provider adopted by France, from whom Armenia lately bought 36 Caesars self-propelled howitzers.
Armenia can be diversifying international coverage past mere safety. Yerevan signed a Complete and Enhanced Partnership Settlement with the E.U. again in 2017 and in February agreed to deepen this cooperation by way of a brand new E.U.-Armenia Partnership Agenda, establishing extra hyperlinks for commerce, funding, in addition to potential visa liberalization. Armenia can be making an attempt to deepen its cooperation with the U.S., with President Joe Biden final month asserting plans to improve the prevailing bilateral strategic dialogue right into a strategic partnership.
“A lot of the inhabitants [of Armenia] wish to get farther from Russia,” James O’Brien, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for Europe and Eurasia, informed a congressional listening to in July. “So we’re creating the situations for that to occur.”
But for a former Soviet satellite tv for pc—Republic Sq. the place Derulo strutted his stuff was named Lenin Sq. till 1990—issues are by no means so easy. The Kremlin is clearly involved by Armenia’s perceived Western tilt, prompting a Russian international ministry spokesperson to warn in March that Yerevan’s present course could “create critical dangers for the sovereignty of the republic.”
Worryingly, in a gathering with Aliyev in Baku in August, Putin voiced assist for the Zangezur Hall, prompting a stern rebuke from Iranian International Minister Abbas Araghchi, who posted on X that “any menace from North, South, East, or West to [the] territorial integrity of our neighbors or redrawing of boundaries is completely unacceptable and a crimson line for Iran.”
Khachaturyan insists breaking with Russia shouldn’t be a part of the plan. “The advance of our relationships with the E.U. shouldn’t be in opposition to anyone,” the Armenian President says. “We don’t take any steps in opposition to any group or construction. It’s actually essential that’s understood.”
Certainly, Armenia’s financial relations with Russia are booming. Bilateral commerce has soared from $2.5 billion in 2021 to $7.5 billion in 2023 and is heading in the right direction to double once more by the top of this 12 months. Armenia’s second metropolis of Gyumri nonetheless hosts a Russian army base from the place its troops patrol the border with Turkey. Most tellingly, Armenia additionally continues to get pleasure from entry to massively discounted Russian fuel. The query is whether or not Yerevan can proceed to nod in all instructions.
“It’s a really delicate stability to develop relations with France, with the European Union, with the US, and to not set off a possible harsh response with Russia,” says Benyamin Poghosyan of APRI Armenia, a Yeveran-based think-tank. “It’s actually a tightrope.”
And a precarious one since new friendships, together with with the West, could not show safer than Russian ones. On Sept. 14 final 12 months, Yuri Kim, appearing U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs, informed the Senate International Relations Committee that “the US won’t countenance any motion or effort—short-term or long-term—to ethnically cleanse or commit different atrocities in opposition to the Armenian inhabitants of Nagorno-Karabakh.”
But one week later that very same inhabitants was forcibly expelled in what human-rights teams have certainly termed “ethnic cleaning.” Varduhi Dadunts, nation director for the Armenia workplace of Prague-headquartered NGO Individuals in Want, says refugees “weren’t even in a position to take financial savings, passports, or belongings. We even noticed youngsters arriving with out footwear.”
Though a bipartisan Azerbaijan Sanctions Evaluation Act has been launched to Congress, to this point the U.S. authorities has not enacted any penalties in opposition to Azerbaijan or sanctioned a single official. In truth, the world will descend on Baku subsequent month for the COP29 local weather convention, the internet hosting of which Aliyev—a dictator who succeeded his father in 2003—has explicitly cited as “an indication of large respect and reverence from the worldwide neighborhood.”
The reality is far grubbier. Armenia additionally wished to host COP29 however withdrew its rival bid in December and as an alternative backed Azerbaijan with a view to safe the discharge of 32 prisoners of conflict (at the very least 23 stay in squalid captivity). The truth that Hamas’ Oct. 7 assault on Israel occurred simply two weeks after the Nagorno-Karabakh exodus actually didn’t assist garner worldwide consideration or sympathy. However historical past’s merciless lesson is that some democracies are valued greater than others, which is why Armenia’s present mission is to dramatically increase its personal price.
“We have to discover the department of financial system or the sphere which shall be actually essential for the world,” says President Khachaturyan.
Yervant Zorian, an Armenian American who serves as chief architect at $80 billion California-based semiconductor provide agency Synopsys, is aware of this solely too properly. He says that he’s proud that shoppers in Japan and South Korea are actually plugged into the Yerevan time zone owing to the 1,300 staff that Synopsys has stationed right here. “The explanation that Taiwan is safe is TSMC,” Zorian tells TIME, referencing the oft-touted “silicon protect” across the self-ruling island owing to its semiconductor colossus. “So having a powerful financial system, producing sure issues that the world is dependent upon, that’s a part of safety.”
On high of attracting international funding, Armenia additionally goals to leverage that inflow of money and expertise to foster home champions. An extracurricular training program known as Armath Engineering Labs has launched 17,000 younger Armenians aged 10 to 18 to sensible STEM topics by way of interactive after-school courses, camps, and competitions throughout 650 workspaces. On the sidelines of the WCIT, Yeveran hosted a DigiTec Expo of over 200 start-ups engaged on all the things from AI-controlled hydroponic chambers for cultivating micro herbs, drone-powered crop dusting, and augmented actuality improvement planning.
Nonetheless, an unmistakable aura of safety hung over the occasion, with a civil protection NGO actively recruiting volunteers, a start-up devoted to sustaining communications throughout instances of battle, and a taking pictures vary to encourage attendees to get gun licenses. “All of the founders are tech guys, founders of startups, who got here collectively as a result of there was no taking pictures vary in Armenia,” says Sargis Karapetyan, CEO of the Union of Superior Expertise Enterprises, which organized DigiTec. “They bought impressed after the conflict.”
However removed from bolstering Armenia on the expense of its neighbors, Khachaturyan insists that sharing that budding affluence will additional improve safety. His authorities has rolled out an bold The Crossroads of Peace proposal, which seeks to remodel the Southern Caucuses right into a commerce hub with a restored community of street, railway, and pipelines linking Central Asia to the Mediterranean and Russia to India by way of Iran. “It may be actual if we get a peace settlement with Azerbaijan,” Khachaturyan says. “Any battle could be solved by negotiations. I’m certain that we’ll have success, as a result of I don’t see another different for peace.”
Whether or not Armenia’s neighbors are listening is a giant query. Earlier this month, Aliyev turned down Armenia’s newest peace proposal, calling it “unrealistic.” The stakes couldn’t be greater and hinge on the deft balancing of realpolitik. “Armenia shouldn’t be pro-West, pro-Russia; Armenia must be pro-survival,” says Poghosyan of APRI Armenia. “As a result of mere Armenian statehood is doubtful. We’re actually on the brink.”
