RIO DE JANEIRO, Could 30 (IPS) – Brazil hopes to quickly reap advantages of its largely renewable power matrix. Knowledge 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.
Practically 60% of all Brazilian knowledge processing at present takes place in the USA—and the determine continues to rise—posing a critical threat, as a pure catastrophe or authorities blockade may paralyze the nation, she warned. “The likelihood of it occurring is low, however the affect can be large,” she informed IPS by telephone from São Paulo.
The Nationwide Knowledge Middle Coverage is predicted to alter this state of affairs, in accordance with the Brazilian authorities, which has promised to quickly unveil this system. Its potential may entice two trillion reais (round US$350 billion) over the subsequent 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 supply buyers. These measures anticipate insurance policies already outlined within the not too long ago authorized tax reform, which is able to totally take impact by 2033.
The abundance of renewable power, water, and land may additionally function a serious attract a world more and more demanding sustainability in new tasks.
Excessive Prices in Brazil
Processing knowledge in Brazil is 25% costlier than overseas, primarily because of the tax burden, famous Kaufman. Eradicating this impediment would pave the best way for a surge in knowledge facilities, as “we now have greater than sufficient renewable power and water,” she argued.
“Brazil has all the pieces it takes to host many knowledge 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 power and water calls for of digital infrastructure—particularly for AI—are elevating considerations amongst environmentalists and specialists in power and communications.
“Brazil first must implement an actual power 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,” mentioned Alexandre Costa, a professor on the Federal College of Ceará in northeastern Brazil.
TikTok plans to arrange an information middle 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 shopper 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 turn into a beautiful location for tasks claiming to be sustainable, as it’s already the nation’s largest wind energy producer and holds huge potential for photo voltaic power.
Nevertheless, the exploitation of robust, regular winds and ample daylight has already sparked criticism and protests from native communities. The growth of those tasks 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 Power Analysis Firm. Nevertheless, fossil fuels nonetheless made up 52.7% of Brazil’s complete power matrix, dominated by oil and pure fuel, whereas coal held a small 4.4% share.
This implies Brazil, the place freight transport remains to be closely reliant on diesel vehicles, nonetheless has a protracted technique to go in decreasing fossil gasoline consumption. This transition would require much more electrical energy.
Knowledge facilities will convey further power demand to an economic system already anticipating a surge in consumption—pushed by inexperienced hydrogen tasks, synthetic intelligence, and automobile electrification, Costa warned IPS in a telephone interview from Fortaleza, Ceará’s capital.
The identical applies to water sources. “There’s no technique to meet an infinite demand for these inputs,” he harassed. In his view, Brazil lacks an power mannequin that balances new calls for, priorities, and the necessity for an more and more clear power matrix.
Dependence
“Probably the most critical challenge within the authorities’s program is that it goals to subsidize knowledge facilities for Massive Techs. We’d like them for our nationwide networks, but they’re proposing to usher in knowledge facilities for Google, Fb, Microsoft, and so on., with all the advantages,” criticized Carlos Afonso, a communications expertise professional and one of many pioneers of the web in Brazil.
He pointed to the dearth of such infrastructure for public entities like Serpro (Knowledge Processing Service) and Dataprev (social safety database), that are very 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 knowledge facilities from these Massive 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 fulfill exterior calls for, with the purpose of making exportable items and companies.
This is the reason Kaufman argues for imposing circumstances on knowledge facilities established in Brazil, corresponding to sustainability based mostly on renewable power and nil greenhouse fuel emissions, power effectivity, and allocating at the least 10% of put in capability to the home market.
The professional believes that the massive knowledge 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 economic system is one in every of 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 Massive Tech corporations from the USA—AWS/Amazon, Microsoft, and Google—management 63% of worldwide knowledge processing, forming a real oligopoly,” emphasised Kaufman. That dominance is predicted to develop to 80%, she added.
In accordance with the worldwide statistics portal Statista, as of March 2025, the USA had 5,426 knowledge facilities—greater than 10 occasions the quantity in Germany (529), the UK (523), or China (449).
The imbalance is even starker in hyperscale knowledge facilities, these occupying greater than 930 sq. meters and housing over 5,000 servers. By the top of 2024, the USA accounted for 54% of worldwide processing capability, in comparison with 16% for China and 15% for Europe, in accordance with Synergy Analysis Group.
In 2024 alone, 137 new knowledge facilities had been constructed—a 13.7% progress charge—in a development anticipated to proceed, pushed largely by developments in synthetic intelligence, notes the analytics and consulting agency based mostly in the USA.
The infrastructure powering the digital economic 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 strains, satellites, and telecom networks are well-known, knowledge facilities—the “brains” that retailer, course of, and distribute data—function in relative obscurity. But, they’ve turn into huge and strategically important as international knowledge visitors surges exponentially.
© Inter Press Service (2025) — All Rights Reserved. Authentic supply: Inter Press Service
