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Tito Costa, chief revenue officer at Tecto, told RCR Wireless News that the Malbec submarine cable fundamentally repositions Porto Alegre, in Brazil, within South America’s connectivity map
In sum – what to know:
$38 million investment in southern Brazil – Tecto plans to develop a 20 MW data center in Porto Alegre, with 3 MW coming online in late 2026.
Submarine cable connectivity – The site will connect directly to V.tal’s Malbec cable linking Brazil, Argentina and, via terrestrial routes, Chile.
Energy and cooling design – The facility will use air-based closed-loop cooling with no water consumption and operate on renewable energy.
Tecto Data Centers plans to invest approximately BRL200 million ($38 million) in a new data center in Porto Alegre, Brazil, as part of its expansion in southern Brazil. The facility, named TPOA1, will be built in the Sarandi neighborhood on a 33,000-square-meter site already owned by the company.
The data center is designed for a total power capacity of 20 MW and will be connected to V.tal’s Malbec submarine cable system, which links Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Buenos Aires, with a branch to Porto Alegre currently under construction. Tecto said the first phase of the project, delivering 3 MW of capacity, is expected to begin operations in the fourth quarter of 2026, with further phases rolled out over time.
The project will be developed through the retrofit of an existing warehouse on the site, which will be upgraded to meet data center technical and operational requirements. According to the company, the facility will use a closed-loop air-cooling system with no water consumption and will operate on 100% renewable energy.
TPOA1 is intended to serve cloud providers, digital content companies, big technology firms and enterprise customers, increasing the availability of data center capacity in southern Brazil.
“The Malbec submarine cable fundamentally repositions Porto Alegre within South America’s connectivity map. It establishes a new international data route directly linking southern Brazil to global networks, reducing dependence on the traditional concentration of international traffic through São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro,” Tito Costa, chief revenue officer at Tecto, told RCR Wireless News.
“From a latency perspective, Porto Alegre becomes a more efficient gateway for traffic originating from or destined to the Southern Cone — including Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Chile — offering shorter paths and improved performance for regional workloads. In terms of redundancy, Malbec adds geographic diversity to Brazil’s international connectivity, strengthening resilience by creating an alternative route outside the Southeast corridor,” he added
The Malbec submarine cable spans around 2,500 km and will include a 280 km branch to Porto Alegre, scheduled for inauguration in 2027. Through terrestrial links, the system also connects to Santiago, Chile, and integrates with V.tal’s broader 26,000 km submarine cable network across the Americas. This infrastructure will connect TPOA1 with Tecto’s existing data centers in Fortaleza, Rio de Janeiro and Barranquilla, Colombia.
