Google promises consistency in LatAm investments

Google will continue investing in its cloud and AI infrastructure in Brazil and the rest of Latin America without necessarily resorting to “megalomaniacal” announcements, said Google Cloud head for Latin America, Eduardo López.

Speaking at a company event in São Paulo on Wednesday, López alluded to recent multi-billion dollar investment announcements by rivals AWS and Microsoft.

AWS pledged 10.1 billion reais (US$1.85bn) in Brazil datacenter investments over the next decade, whereas Microsoft promised 14.7bn reais during the next three years. Days earlier, Microsoft had committed to investing US$1.3bn in Mexico.

“Making an announcement is a matter of marketing. Executing it is a matter of culture. And we have this culture,” said López in response to a question by BNamericas.

“We have invested 1.8bn reais in Brazil from 2017 to 2022. We approved a [five-year] investment of US$1.2bn in Latin America in 2022. We're making constant investments. Besides, one needs to check after these 10 years how much was actually invested.”

Google's first cloud region in Mexico, which is expected to open next year, is one of the company's ongoing investments.

An US$850 million datacenter in Uruguay, the company’s first in the country, and the Firmina submarine cable connecting South America and the US, are also advancing. Firmina is awaiting the final operations permit from Brazilian environmental watchdog Ibama.

The company is also developing an engineering and development center in São Paulo, added the executive. Google aims to train more than 90,000 students in AI and cloud by 2026 in Brazil in partnership with the local Senai and Senac services.

Clients that presented at Google's São Paulo event included TIM, cosmetics giant Natura, and federal data processing company Serpro. TIM has Google as its primary cloud partner and is beginning to use genAI applications for back-office and front-end operations.

Local projects with MercadoLibre and construction marketplace LeroyMerlin were also showcased.

Other clients mentioned were insurance group Porto, airline company Latam, and several municipal and federal public bodies.

DATACENTERS

BNamericas also asked López about environmental issues the company is facing in its datacenter projects in Uruguay and Chile.

In Chile, after much controversy over the use of water for the upcoming datacenter in Cerrillos, Google decided to restart the project from scratch and redesign the entire structure with air cooling, instead of liquid cooling as originally planned. 

In Uruguay, the company dealt with questions about water consumption for the Canelones site. After adjustments made to the original design, the datacenter project was finally approved and construction began in August. López was present at the laying of the foundation stone along with Uruguayan President Luis Lacalle-Pou.

López said the “difficulties in Chile” were a factor in the company's decision to proceed with the Uruguay project instead.

“The first architecture of the project in Uruguay was with water. And this at a time when Uruguay was experiencing a drought, which raised questions. What did Google do? It redid the project in two months, changing the entire architecture to air.”

López said that the company is committed to sustainability, to the demands and needs of each country, and to responding to changes in projects if necessary.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Among other announcements at the São Paulo event, Google made available the Gemini genAI chatbot service in Portuguese through a lateral bar to Workspace users.

The company also made official the integration of its cloud services with Oracle’s databases in the country, as previously reported.

And with an eye on developers and entrepreneurs, Google Cloud announced a project to support startups, called Google Cloud Startup Hub, and the creation of Google Cloud Space, a new lab in capital São Paulo.