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In Rio de Janeiro, Elea is developing what it calls a ‘city of data centers,’ designed to support large-scale AI and cloud deployments
In sum – what to know:
AI demand is expanding beyond hyperscalers – Big tech leads today, but enterprise sectors such as healthcare, finance and insurance are expected to drive future AI workloads.
Elea’s customer base is highly diversified – Demand spans government, education, oil and gas, and corporate clients, supporting long-term financial resilience.
Rio de Janeiro is central to Elea’s growth plans – A multi-gigawatt, renewable-powered data center campus is being built to support large-scale AI and cloud demand.
Brazil-based data center operator Elea Data Centers is seeing customer demand evolve rapidly as AI workloads scale, with hyperscalers leading the market today and enterprise adoption expected to follow, according to Fernanda Belchior, the company’s communications, marketing and sales operations director.
Speaking in an interview with RCR Wireless News, Belchior said that while large cloud and technology companies are currently driving most AI-related demand, other sectors are beginning to prepare for wider adoption.
“I would say that the majority will come from the big tech, the cloud providers, because they have a lot of training models, LLMs, and devices to deploy,” she said. “But I also see a medium- to long-term opportunity for enterprise-oriented companies to require AI workloads as well.”
Belchior pointed to industries such as healthcare, insurance, and financial services as future growth areas, as companies begin deploying AI agents and automation tools alongside traditional IT workloads.
When asked which verticals are currently generating the strongest demand for Elea’s services, Belchior said the company benefits from a diversified customer base across both public and private sectors. “I would say that education, financial services, and health insurance are very important for us. Not only the private sector, but the government sector is also very important for Elea.”
She added that oil and gas remains a significant vertical in Brazil, and that revenue diversification across sectors supports the company’s long-term financial stability.
Elea currently operates nine interconnected data centers across Brazil, all powered by renewable energy. The company is expanding capacity to support growing cloud and AI demand, with its largest development underway in Rio de Janeiro.
In this city, Elea is developing what it calls a “city of data centers,” designed to support large-scale AI and cloud deployments. The campus will be supplied entirely with renewable energy and is positioned to benefit from multiple subsea cable landings.
“And the goal is to reach, in the first phase, 1.5 gigawatts, while in the second phase we expect to reach up to three gigawatts,” Belchior said.
The Rio de Janeiro campus already includes an operational facility, with additional greenfield data centers under development.
In October 2025, Elea Data Centers won a public tender to build a large-scale data center for Brazilian energy giant Petrobras, marking what it claims to be the largest IT infrastructure project ever awarded by a Latin American company.
Elea Data Centers said that the BRL2.3 billion (currently $427 million), 17-year contract will fund the construction of a 30-MVA high-capacity facility equipped with advanced liquid cooling technology. The center will host Petrobras’ supercomputing systems for exploration, research, and reservoir modeling, while also supporting AI-driven workloads, the firm said.
