Did an article about the $4 billion Firebird datacenter in Armenia being at risk because of unreliable power supply actually appear on Gizmodo? No, that's not true: The newsroom predominantly covering tech did not publish that story. The article in question appeared on a fake, days-old page linking to the real Gizmodo website.
The article (archived here and here) was published on the gizmodo.cc website on June 30, 2026, under the title:
$4 Billion Investment at Risk? Firebird's AI Data Center in Armenia Could Become Its Biggest Mistake.
The story continued:
U.S.-based startup Firebird has announced the construction of a large-scale data center in Armenia that is expected to become one of the largest artificial intelligence infrastructure projects in the South Caucasus. Approximately $500 million has already been invested in the project, while the company's long-term plans call for total investments of up to $4 billion. However, the country's aging and unreliable power infrastructure puts this investment at risk.
This is what the article looked like on gizmodo.cc at the time of writing:
(Image source: Gizmodo.cc.)
In June 2026, Firebird, which describes itself (archived here and here) as "a U.S. and Armenia-based AI cloud and infrastructure company" reported (archived here) that its Armenia AI Megaproject entered "its final stage of construction and deployment."
Gizmodo, which bills itself (archived here) as "the internet's very first tech news blog" that has transformed into a newsroom since its founding in 2002, however, never published the article reviewed in this fact check.
Unlike real stories published by Gizmodo, the piece in question did not link to external sources and did not cite any original interviews with human experts on the matter. It did not quote Armenian authorities or ask Firebird to reply to address the supposed concerns.
The story appeared on a fake page that, unlike the real news organization's site, was registered only days before the article's publication, as Domain Tools Whois records (archived here and here) revealed. As of this writing, it was 7 days old:
(Image source: Whois.domaintools.com.)
As seen in the screenshot above, the page's name was similar to, but not the same as, that of the real site: gizmodo.cc, not gizmodo.com.
To make the deception more believable, the page not only mimicked Gizmodo's design but also linked to real pages on that site.
The page claimed the article was written by "Webb Wright", but when Lead Stories clicked on that name, the page redirected to another author, Justin Caffier (archived here).
As of this writing, Webb Wright (archived here) worked for Gizmodo as a reporter covering AI. However, his recent articles did not include the one reviewed in this fact check.
In addition to the fake article, social media accounts also shared videos making the same claim and being attributed to Gizmodo. Such examples can be found here (archived here and here), here (archived here) and here (archived here):
🚨Firebird is dropping $4 billion on an AI data center in Armenia, where power outages are routine and the grid is notoriously unreliable.
-- BEYOND THE VEIL (@beyond_theveil1) July 1, 2026
Weak infrastructure, questionable cooling, and no serious backup systems.
When the lights go out, so does the investment.
Nothing to see... pic.twitter.com/qoP9cFNONh
