Chile to ink partnership with Nvidia for AI development

Chile will sign a partnership with Nvidia to develop advanced computing and strengthen the country's artificial intelligence ecosystem.

The partnership will come through the Chilean government's adherence to the Nvidia AI Nations program, Márcio Aguiar, head of enterprise sales for Nvidia in Latin America, told BNamericas. 

The agreement is expected to be formalized in September when Nvidia will hold an event in the country with local startups. The same month will see the government unveil the details of its datacenters plan, with which it aims to attract US$2.5bn in investments.

Earlier this month, the government submitted a bill to the lower house to regulate AI following the guidelines of the regulation approved by the EU, with different obligations depending on the risks. 

In Chile, universities have been the main buyers of Nvidia's DGX supercomputing platform. Currently, there are negotiations for the purchase of eight more of these in the country.

Brazil was the first major country in Latin America to join Nvidia's AI Nation program, but it is restricted to a federal university. 

Before the generative AI boom, in September 2022, the federal university of Goiás state (UFG) joined the initiative to foster the growth of accelerated computing and expand access to processing capacity for industry and academia. The move was made through its Center of Excellence in Artificial Intelligence (CEIA).

By the end of July, Brazil’s ministry of science, technology and innovation (MCTI) intends to unveil a policy for AI infrastructure based on the country’s existing AI strategy. 

This policy could open the doors to a partnership at the government level with Nvidia. Brazil is also working on its own datacenters program.

In addition to Brazil, Nvidia also has partnerships with Ecuador, Uruguay, and is in negotiations with Paraguay, El Salvador, Barbados and the Dominican Republic. 

“All these countries are looking to foster the development of their talent and the development of their data infrastructure,” said Aguiar. 

Paraguay has caught the attention of large cloud service providers for the installation of datacenters due to its abundance of clean energy and government measures to attract data infrastructure investments, he added.

“If the country has a clear policy, wants our help, we will help design it,” Aguiar said.

In Mexico, ruling party presidential candidate Claudia Sheinbaum has requested a meeting with Nvidia, BNamericas has learned, with the company likely to wait to hold such a meeting until after the June 2 elections. 

LatAm and Financial Results

Companies and governments in Latin America are still in the early stages of advanced AI supercomputing.

“Latin America continues to explore [the use of advanced AI], it’s growing, but still in its infancy,” said Aguiar.

The region represents around 4-5% of Nvidia's global revenues. 

On Thursday, the company announced record sales of US$26bn for its first fiscal quarter ended April 28, up 262%, with datacenter revenues increasing 427% to US$14.8bn.

Nvidia saw even stronger growth in net income, which jumped 628% to US$14.8bn.