RIO DE JANEIRO, Could 30 (IPS) – Brazil hopes to quickly reap advantages of its largely renewable vitality matrix. Information facilities, whose demand is rising with the strides made by synthetic intelligence, are the brand new frontier for these still-uncertain investments.
That is even a matter of “digital sovereignty,” not only for Brazil, in accordance with Dora Kaufman, a professor in this system on clever applied sciences and digital design on the Pontifical Catholic College of Sao Paulo.
Almost 60% of all Brazilian information processing presently takes place in the USA—and the determine continues to rise—posing a severe danger, as a pure catastrophe or authorities blockade might paralyze the nation, she warned. “The likelihood of it taking place is low, however the influence could be large,” she informed IPS by cellphone from São Paulo.
The Nationwide Information Middle Coverage is anticipated to alter this situation, in accordance with the Brazilian authorities, which has promised to quickly unveil this system. Its potential might appeal to two trillion reais (round US$350 billion) over the following 10 years, claims Finance Minister Fernando Haddad.
Exemptions from federal taxes and lowered import duties on tools are among the many incentives the federal government will provide buyers. These measures anticipate insurance policies already outlined within the lately accredited tax reform, which is able to totally take impact by 2033.
The abundance of renewable vitality, water, and land might additionally function a serious attract a world more and more demanding sustainability in new initiatives.
Excessive Prices in Brazil
Processing information in Brazil is 25% dearer than overseas, primarily because of the tax burden, famous Kaufman. Eradicating this impediment would pave the best way for a surge in information facilities, as “we’ve greater than sufficient renewable vitality and water,” she argued.
“Brazil has every part it takes to host many information facilities, and the challenges are solvable. We’d like them not simply to develop synthetic intelligence but additionally for the rising digitalization of presidency and companies,” she emphasised.
Nevertheless, the voracious vitality and water calls for of digital infrastructure—particularly for AI—are elevating issues amongst environmentalists and consultants in vitality and communications.
“Brazil first must implement an actual vitality transition. To this point, we’ve solely added renewable sources alongside fossil fuels. A simply transition stays an enormous problem, requiring the electrification of transport—a precedence because of the local weather disaster,” stated Alexandre Costa, a professor on the Federal College of Ceará in northeastern Brazil.
TikTok plans to arrange a knowledge heart in Caucaia, a metropolis of 355,000 residents in Ceará. Simply 35 kilometers away, the Pecém port—which incorporates an industrial zone—has plans for a inexperienced hydrogen manufacturing hub, one other main client of water and electrical energy.
Pecém already hosts a thermoelectric plant and a metal mill, each of that are extremely water-intensive.
Fossil Fuels Nonetheless Dominate
The Northeast, Brazil’s poorest area, has change into a beautiful location for initiatives claiming to be sustainable, as it’s already the nation’s largest wind energy producer and holds huge potential for photo voltaic vitality.
Nevertheless, the exploitation of sturdy, regular winds and plentiful daylight has already sparked criticism and protests from native communities. The enlargement of those initiatives is encroaching on growing quantities of land, creating conflicts with native populations and small-scale farming, famous Costa, a physicist specializing in meteorology and local weather change.
Nationally, renewable sources accounted for 86.1% of electrical energy consumption in 2022, in accordance with the federal government’s Vitality Analysis Firm. Nevertheless, fossil fuels nonetheless made up 52.7% of Brazil’s complete vitality matrix, dominated by oil and pure gasoline, whereas coal held a small 4.4% share.
This implies Brazil, the place freight transport continues to be closely reliant on diesel vans, nonetheless has an extended technique to go in decreasing fossil gas consumption. This transition would require much more electrical energy.
Information facilities will convey extra vitality demand to an financial system already anticipating a surge in consumption—pushed by inexperienced hydrogen initiatives, synthetic intelligence, and car electrification, Costa warned IPS in a cellphone interview from Fortaleza, Ceará’s capital.
The identical applies to water assets. “There’s no technique to meet an infinite demand for these inputs,” he burdened. In his view, Brazil lacks an vitality mannequin that balances new calls for, priorities, and the necessity for an more and more clear vitality matrix.
Dependence
“Essentially the most severe problem within the authorities’s program is that it goals to subsidize information facilities for Huge Techs. We’d like them for our nationwide networks, but they’re proposing to herald information facilities for Google, Fb, Microsoft, and many others., with all the advantages,” criticized Carlos Afonso, a communications know-how knowledgeable and one of many pioneers of the web in Brazil.
He pointed to the dearth of such infrastructure for public entities like Serpro (Information Processing Service) and Dataprev (social safety database), that are important for presidency operations, in addition to the Nationwide Analysis Community that connects universities and different scientific and innovation establishments.
“Will they should depend on information facilities from these Huge Techs in Brazil?” he questioned in a dialog with IPS.
It seems that each the federal government’s program for this sector and its inexperienced hydrogen initiative are primarily designed to satisfy exterior calls for, with the objective of making exportable items and providers.
That is why Kaufman argues for imposing situations on information facilities established in Brazil, corresponding to sustainability primarily based on renewable vitality and nil greenhouse gasoline emissions, vitality effectivity, and allocating a minimum of 10% of put in capability to the home market.
The knowledgeable believes that the massive information facilities to be put in in Brazil will primarily serve AI coaching, which minimizes latency, the milliseconds of delay in long-distance communication from origin to vacation spot.
However the actuality—each in Brazil and globally—within the digital financial system is one among deep dependence on the USA, a scenario exacerbated by the insurance policies of President Donald Trump, who prioritized the pursuits of the USA above all else, even worldwide treaties.
“Three Huge Tech corporations from the USA—AWS/Amazon, Microsoft, and Google—management 63% of world information processing, forming a real oligopoly,” emphasised Kaufman. That dominance is anticipated to develop to 80%, she added.
In line with the worldwide statistics portal Statista, as of March 2025, the USA had 5,426 information facilities—greater than 10 occasions the quantity in Germany (529), the UK (523), or China (449).
The imbalance is even starker in hyperscale information facilities, these occupying greater than 930 sq. meters and housing over 5,000 servers. By the tip of 2024, the USA accounted for 54% of world processing capability, in comparison with 16% for China and 15% for Europe, in accordance with Synergy Analysis Group.
In 2024 alone, 137 new information facilities have been constructed—a 13.7% progress fee—in a development anticipated to proceed, pushed largely by developments in synthetic intelligence, notes the analytics and consulting agency primarily based in the USA.
The infrastructure powering the digital financial system, already connecting two-thirds of humanity and increasing quickly with improvements like cloud computing and AI, stays largely unseen.
Whereas cables, together with intercontinental submarine traces, satellites, and telecom networks are well-known, information facilities—the “brains” that retailer, course of, and distribute data—function in relative obscurity. But, they’ve change into large and strategically important as world information site visitors surges exponentially.
© Inter Press Service (2025) — All Rights Reserved. Unique supply: Inter Press Service
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