RIO DE JANEIRO, Might 30 (IPS) – Brazil hopes to quickly reap advantages of its largely renewable vitality 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 response to 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 knowledge processing at present takes place in america—and the determine continues to rise—posing a severe danger, as a pure catastrophe or authorities blockade might paralyze the nation, she warned. “The chance of it taking place is low, however the influence can be large,” she instructed IPS by cellphone from São Paulo.
The Nationwide Knowledge Heart Coverage is anticipated to alter this state of affairs, in response to 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 subsequent 10 years, claims Finance Minister Fernando Haddad.
Exemptions from federal taxes and diminished import duties on gear are among the many incentives the federal government will provide buyers. These measures anticipate insurance policies already outlined within the not too long ago accepted tax reform, which can 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 tasks.
Excessive Prices in Brazil
Processing knowledge 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 knowledge facilities, as “we’ve greater than sufficient renewable vitality and water,” she argued.
“Brazil has the whole lot it takes to host many knowledge facilities, and the challenges are solvable. We want them not simply to develop synthetic intelligence but in addition 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 specialists in vitality and communications.
“Brazil first must implement an actual vitality transition. To date, 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 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 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 turn into a lovely 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 vitality.
Nevertheless, the exploitation of sturdy, regular winds and considerable daylight has already sparked criticism and protests from native communities. The enlargement of those tasks is encroaching on rising 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 response to the federal government’s Power 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 a protracted strategy to go in lowering fossil gas consumption. This transition would require much more electrical energy.
Knowledge facilities will deliver further vitality 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 cellphone interview from Fortaleza, Ceará’s capital.
The identical applies to water assets. “There’s no strategy to meet an infinite demand for these inputs,” he pressured. 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
“Probably the most severe difficulty within the authorities’s program is that it goals to subsidize knowledge facilities for Massive Techs. We want them for our nationwide networks, but they’re proposing to herald knowledge 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 shortage of such infrastructure for public entities like Serpro (Knowledge 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 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 satisfy exterior calls for, with the purpose of making exportable items and providers.
This is the reason Kaufman argues for imposing situations on knowledge facilities established in Brazil, resembling sustainability based mostly 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 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 america, a scenario exacerbated by the insurance policies of President Donald Trump, who prioritized the pursuits of america above all else, even worldwide treaties.
“Three Massive Tech corporations from america—AWS/Amazon, Microsoft, and Google—management 63% of world knowledge 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, america had 5,426 knowledge facilities—greater than 10 instances 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 tip of 2024, america accounted for 54% of world processing capability, in comparison with 16% for China and 15% for Europe, in response to Synergy Analysis Group.
In 2024 alone, 137 new knowledge facilities have been constructed—a 13.7% progress charge—in a pattern anticipated to proceed, pushed largely by developments in synthetic intelligence, notes the analytics and consulting agency based mostly in america.
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 large and strategically crucial as world knowledge visitors surges exponentially.
© Inter Press Service (2025) — All Rights Reserved. Unique supply: Inter Press Service
