Scala breaks ground on US$180mn Fortaleza datacenter campus

DigitalBridge’s Scala Data Centers broke ground on a 1bn-real (US$182mn) datacenter campus in Fortaleza in Brazil’s Ceará state.

The first site at the campus, the SFORPF01 datacenter, has 7.2MW in planned IT capacity and is in “advanced construction works”, according to the company, with plans to go live in early 2025.

Initially, the company considered activating it before the end of 2024. Scala's CEO Marcos Peigo said that the delay was due to the controversy surrounding the construction of a desalination plant on the region.

"We were on hold. We bought everything, produced the modules, but we didn't continue with the works until we were comfortable that we wouldn't have any setbacks," Peigo told BNamericas.

Earlier this month, the Ceará government decided to move the location of the plant.

An event held on Tuesday, with the presence of the mayor of Fortaleza, José Sarto, and Scala CEO Marcos Peigo, marked the progress of the works.

The campus is aimed at meeting demands for connection and computing closer to the end user (edge computing) and also has a configuration developed to meet high demand from large content providers and cloud services, or hyperscalers, Scala said.

With an area of 24,000m2, the land will host a second building, which the company says will make the project the largest in the region.

This second site is projected to have 13.5MW in capacity, totaling 20.7MW of IT capacity for the whole campus.

The complex will also have a dedicated power substation and will be supplied with 100% renewable and certified energy, said Scala.

Furthermore, the campus is designed to operate with PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) below 1.5 and will feature zero water consumption, added the company.

Scala has reported that it already has two anchor-clients for the site and is negotiating with others.

Overall, the company estimates the generation of approximately 700 direct and indirect jobs during the construction phase, in addition to a further 60 direct jobs in the operation phase.

CONSTRUCTION

The construction of SFORPF01 relies on Scala's proprietary design and construction methodology FastDeploy, which it said allows the implementation of datacenters in up to 50% less time compared with the traditional building model.

The solution is based on prefabricated and transportable modular components that are integrated into the buildings where the datacenter is located. The modular equipment is supplied by Scala's partner Modular Data Centers.

In addition to Fortaleza, Scala Data Centers continues its expansion plan in Latin America with other sites under construction in Brazil, Colombia and Chile.

Recently, the company opened new sites at its Tamboré, Porto Alegre, and Tepotzotlán (Mexico) campuses, giving it 12 buildings in operation.

Since its creation in 2020, Scala claims to have invested more than 8bn reais in its projects, aiming at reaching 500MW of distributed capacity in the next five years.

The company planned to invest US$2bn in datacenters across Latin America in 2024-25.