Snapshot: Latin America's newcomers to the datacenter arena

The sustained growth of Latin America’s datacenter sector, fueled by the AI boom and driven by rising demand for cloud services and connectivity, has been attracting a host of new players to the industry, particularly in recent months.

While their profiles vary, these newcomers are all vying for a share of Latin America’s expanding market.

BNamericas projects that the sector could add around 10GW of additional processing and computing capacity over the next decade, based on initiatives under consideration as well as projects that are planned or already underway.

From land prospectors to strategic consultancies and datacenter developers, the influx of these new entrants may create contracting opportunities for big tech firms and hyperscale datacenter providers. At the same time, it intensifies competition within the broader datacenter ecosystem and poses challenges for established players.

BNamericas provides an overview of some of these newcomers and their specific objectives.

247 Datacenters

After nearly four years leading power and thermal management giant Vertiv in Latin America, Rafael Garrido decided to leverage his expertise and business relationships to venture into datacenter development.

Garrido is one of the key figures behind 247 (“Twenty Four Seven”) Datacenters, a new Brazilian company focused on hyperscalers, large local enterprises and edge solutions.

247 is backed by São Paulo-based Autonomy Investimentos, an asset and investment management firm founded in 2007 by Roberto de Lima and Robert Gibbins, which has recently rebranded as Arch Capital.

Beyond cloud services, 247 is targeting AI infrastructure with campuses capable of supporting over 100MW.

The company is initially focusing on Brazil and reports having six land parcels in its portfolio for datacenter projects – four in São Paulo and two in Rio de Janeiro.

“AI has changed the game a lot in terms of rack density and even project sizes. The idea is to be flexible,” Garrido told BNamericas in September.

“We will offer a project that adapts very easily to the evolution of the market and the increase in rack density. This first project will have flexibility in relation to hyperscalers, in relation to enterprises as well, especially enterprises with large IT operations.”

Ares Management/GCP International

Founded in 1997 in California, Ares Management reported over US$447bn in assets under management and more than 2,950 employees operating across North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and the Middle East as of June.

In October, Ares announced a deal to acquire GCP International, securing a foothold in Latin America’s datacenter market.

Through its Ada Infrastructure brand, GCP has announced hyperscale projects representing over 1GW of IT capacity in London, Tokyo, Osaka and São Paulo.

When Ada launched in 2023, it reserved 850MW of IT capacity for these regions, with an additional 1.5GW listed as “future total capacity,” including 100MW at two campuses in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.

Ada also expressed interest in expanding to Chile, Mexico, Colombia and Argentina.

Market sources have told BNamericas that Ada’s regional projects have seen limited progress. Fresh resources and new investment could help accelerate development.

Ares secured financing from Morgan Stanley and Citigroup for the acquisition, which is expected to close in the first half of this year.

Supernova/Mapa

Focusing on land prospecting and development for data projects, Brazilian firm Supernova partnered with Mapa Investimentos, a company specializing in real estate projects through built-to-suit and sale-leaseback models, to enter the datacenter market.

The companies aim to meet demand from hyperscale datacenter projects. Mapa is also establishing its fourth investment fund – its first dedicated to datacenters – to support these investments.

“We estimate this fund will reach around 2bn reais [US$343mn] very quickly. We estimate 300mn reais, more or less, for each hyperscale project,” Bernardo Werneck, senior managing partner at Mapa told BNamericas in January.

Supernova’s business model involves constructing powered shells (structures with power capacity) and customizing them to meet tenant demands on a turnkey basis.

“In our model, we will deliver part of the datacenter structure, which is basically real estate, tailored to the client. They pay a long-term rent with the option to buy the asset,” Wagner Avelar, Supernova's executive director, said at the time.

The first project was announced for Leopoldina in Minas Gerais state, with additional sites being evaluated in the interior of São Paulo state and Brazil’s northeast.

NextStream

Targeting hyperscale projects initially and AI datacenters in a subsequent phase, NextStream was launched following UK-based investment fund Actis’ acquisition of Telefónica’s Latin American datacenter business.

In January, NextStream appointed Serafim Abreu Jr as CEO, tasking him with expanding into the hyperscaler market. The company has already secured a contract for a datacenter in Mexico, near Querétaro.

“I can't reveal the client, but it’s a greenfield project, a new datacenter that we’re starting from scratch and which we intend to deliver in January next year,” Abreu Jr told BNamericas.

NextStream has additional projects in the pipeline, with land and energy secured for developments in Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Argentina and Peru.

Aurea Finvest

Similar to Supernova and Mapa, Brazil’s Aurea Finvest, an established player in real estate and property financing, is now expanding into datacenters.

Aurea Finvest’s model involves prospecting, purchasing, licensing, preparing, developing and selling land tailored to specific client needs and project requirements.

As reported exclusively by BNamericas, the company hired Washington, DC-based financial advisory firm Delphos to raise at least US$500mn in private capital for land acquisitions.

In late 2024, Aurea Finvest sold a plot with projected capacity of up to 200MW to Tecto Data Centers, a subsidiary of V.tal. The site is located in Santana do Parnaíba, São Paulo state.

In another investment, Aurea Finvest acquired and developed land in Sumaré, São Paulo, capable of supporting up to 800MW of datacenter capacity. The company is currently seeking clients for this project.

“We're referring to this project as the 'Data City', a provisional name, something we typically do for each project,” Marcelo Hannud, CEO and co-founder of Aurea Finvest, told BNamericas.

“In addition to this site, we're finalizing another one in the Campinas metropolitan region. We've signed an exclusive MOU for commercial negotiations. This land has capacity exceeding 350MW.”

Um Telecom’s Atlantic

Focusing on colocation and corporate digital transformation, Brazilian B2B telecom company Um Telecom recently launched Atlantic Data Centers, a new business unit dedicated to the sector.

Headquartered in Recife, Pernambuco state, Atlantic will be led by industry experts Daniel Gomes and Joselito Bergamaschine, serving as president and vice president, respectively.

Even before Atlantic’s official launch – a brand name developed with the help of AI tools – Um Telecom had been expanding its presence in the datacenter market.

In June 2023, the company announced a 150mn-real project to build Recife’s first tier 3 datacenter, targeting operational readiness by late 2025.

“We don't want to have just this datacenter. We want to promote the local datacenter market, attract other projects and create a local ecosystem like Fortaleza,” Um Telecom COO Daniel Gomes told BNamericas at the time.

The company is not targeting hyperscalers or AI workloads, at least for the near term.