Afonso França Engenharia advances datacenter buildouts, mulls concessions

Brazilian civil construction group Afonso França Engenharia signed a new contract to develop a datacenter, as it moves forward with building sites for at least five other companies, commercial manager Fábio Pezutto told BNamericas.

In addition, the group is looking at infrastructure assets and considering entering the concessions segment to further diversify its portfolio.

“We're studying the concessions and PPPs market very carefully. There are lots of projects coming there,” said the executive.

Afonso França has business units dedicated to segments such as hospitals, logistics, sanitation, hotels, corporate/commercial initiatives and datacenters, among others.

Concessions would represent a new area.

DATACENTERS

Since it started working in the datacenter segment nine years ago, Afonso França has built well over 10 sites in Brazil for clients such as Odata, Equinix and V.tal.

“We've been adding fuel to the fire. Datacenters are still a hot market, despite the entry of more companies to compete, companies that traditionally only operated in other markets,” said Pezutto.

AI helps explain the enthusiasm.

“Everyone is betting that a huge wave will come with the actual entry into operation of generative AI. We're trying to get ahead of the game, including by providing consulting services, because we know that when this wave comes, whoever offers the best time terms will win.” 

According to Pezutto, several construction companies have started looking at the datacenter market in recent times, some turning to Afonso França to understand how the go-to-market in this sector works, while the company's datacenter construction specialists are being headhunted by competitors, he said.

Meanwhile, other builders have also stepped up their datacenter focus.

This month, for example, Prumo Logística signed an MOU with the Andrade Gutierrez group for the development of hyperscale datacenters at the Açu port complex in Rio de Janeiro state.

The agreement was signed with construction company Vertin, a JV between Andrade Gutierrez subsidiary Consag Engenharia and CA3M Engenharia. Vertin has datacenter projects in its construction portfolio. 

Among the projects currently under development by Vertin are two sites for a datacenter complex planned by Scala Data Centers in Barueri, São Paulo state.

Vertin was also responsible for the datacenter of Telemar, a company later acquired by telco Oi, which was concluded in 2002 in Rio de Janeiro.

REVENUE PIE AND PROJECTS

At Afonso França, the technology and datacenter segment represents around 37% of the group's revenues. 

This share has grown consistently in recent years and the company is engaging with 90% of the Brazilian datacenter market, Pezutto said. 

Currently, Afonso França has seven projects underway.

These include the project of CloudHQ’s datacenter campuses in São Paulo state, a US$3 billion megaproject in Paulínia with 288MW in projected IT capacity planned for February; and in Rio de Janeiro, a 1.7bn-real GIG campus with 36MW in projected capacity in São João do Meriti and planned to go live in September 2025.

CloudHQ's contract is one of the largest in Afonso França's portfolio in the end-to-end format – comprising site selection, construction, contracting of suppliers and delivery of the site – and with a dedicated team serving the client.

Takoda, a spin-off of Brazilian IT multinational Tivit for colocation datacenters, is another big client.

Afonso França worked on the pre-engineering of a second Takoda datacenter in Rio de Janeiro and is now in the process of obtaining licenses and permits for the site, according to the executive.

São Paulo-based Takoda has datacenters in Rio de Janeiro (Rio de Janeiro 1), in São Paulo (São Paulo 1 and 2) and in Bogotá. 

Other projects carried out by Afonso França are new datacenters for Equinix and Odata.

This year, Afonso França signed a contract with a new client. This client cannot yet be made public, but, according to Pezutto, it is a major company in the technology sector. The projects are already under development.