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According to Fernanda Belchior, communications, marketing and sales operations director at Elea Data Centers, Brazil’s energy mix plays a central role in its ability to support AI workloads
Brazil is entering a favorable phase for the expansion of AI-related data center infrastructure, driven by market scale, energy availability, and accelerating digitalization. In an interview with RCR Wireless News, Fernanda Belchior, communications, marketing and sales operations director at Elea Data Centers, described how these factors are shaping demand for capacity across the country.
“I would say that Brazil is living a very good moment, a unique one,” Belchior said. She pointed to the country’s large population and the ongoing digital transformation across multiple industries. “So you have a solid base in terms of consumer base. You have a huge population. You have like different sectors that are digitalizing their industry and also their requirements for workloads.”
Energy availability is another central factor supporting AI infrastructure growth, according to Belchior. She highlighted Brazil’s high share of renewable power generation, including solar, wind, and hydroelectric sources. “So Brazil nowadays has around 90% of its energy matrix that is renewable,” she said. Belchior added that the country has sufficient power capacity to support both existing operations and new AI-focused deployments. “So we have energy not only to accommodate the current operations that you have running in Brazil, but also the new one, which will be fully dedicated to AI.”
Belchior also emphasized the importance of coordination across multiple stakeholders to support future growth. “So we have a lot of stakeholders, not only data center providers, but also institutions, government, the energy stakeholders, and the energy supply chain as a whole that have been working a lot in order to promote the necessary investments to absorb this upcoming demand,” she said.
When discussing challenges, Belchior framed rising capacity requirements as a global issue rather than one specific to Brazil or Latin America. “I would say that when it comes to AI, we’re dealing with unprecedented capacity,” she said. “Now we are dealing with our customers in order to absorb and supply like 10, 20, 100 megawatts in terms of capacity.”
She stressed that similar pressures are emerging worldwide as AI adoption accelerates. “So I don’t see this as a challenge for Brazil or Latin America. I see this as a challenge for the world,” Belchior said.
Despite these demands, Belchior described the current moment as an opportunity for the industry to rethink how it operates. “So I see it as a challenge, but also an opportunity for the industry as a whole to work in a different approach, in a more ecosystem oriented approach,” she said. “So I’m very positive about the market.”
