Countries / Americas
Brazil
Brazil has a funded national AI plan, a growing public supercomputer and a new tax regime to pull data centres in.
The Brazilian AI Plan (PBIA) commits about R$23 billion through 2028, including R$1.8 billion to expand the Santos Dumont supercomputer and a R$1 billion sovereign cloud for federal bodies. In September 2026 the president signed a special tax regime for data centres (Redata), which suspends federal taxes on equipment for operators that build or expand in Brazil. A general AI bill had passed the Senate and sat in the Chamber of Deputies when our source was published. For someone seeking compute, the practical effects are cheaper imported hardware for new builds and large private projects, such as a planned wind-powered campus in Ceara.
AI policy and activity
The PBIA was presented in July 2024 and rests on five pillars: infrastructure, training, innovation, governance and internationalisation. Brazil joined the BRICS AI Alliance Network in December 2024.
Power and grid
The Pecem project shows that grid approval from the national operator is a real gate for very large loads in the north-east: the first application was reportedly refused on stability grounds before approval followed.
Data centres and compute
| Site | Where | Status | Notes and source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Santos Dumont supercomputer National Laboratory for Scientific Computing (LNCC) | Petropolis, Rio de Janeiro state | Operating | Eviden release describes an upgrade to 18.85 petaflops with NVIDIA H100 and Grace Hopper nodes plus AMD MI300A parts, direct liquid cooling and a 400 Gbps InfiniBand fabric, as the first step of the PBIA. (source) |
| Casa dos Ventos and TikTok (ByteDance) campus Casa dos Ventos with ByteDance | Pecem port complex, Ceara | Planned | Reported as 300 MW initially, expandable to 900 MW, powered by the developer's wind portfolio, with operations targeted for January 2027 and about R$50 billion of total investment. The national grid operator reportedly first rejected the connection over stability concerns, then approved it. (source) |
Rules and programmes
| Instrument | Kind | Status | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brazilian AI Plan (PBIA) 2024-2028 | Programme | In force | Trade-press review one year on. Reports R$23 billion through 2028, R$1.8 billion for Santos Dumont and R$1 billion for a sovereign cloud run by Serpro and Dataprev. |
| Redata: special tax regime for data centre services | Law | In force from 15 September 2026 | Press report says the president signed it on 15 September 2026 after congressional approval on 1 September. It began as Provisional Measure 1318 in September 2025, which required at least 10% of capacity for the domestic market, 2% of incentivised purchases spent on R&D and clean energy and water-efficiency standards. Check the final statute for the conditions that were kept. |
| Provisional Measure 1318/2025 (original Redata text) | Law | Ended from 18 September 2025 | Law-firm summary of the 2025 measure that Redata grew from. Suspended PIS/Pasep, Cofins, IPI and import tax on data centre equipment, with benefits authorised to the end of 2026 in that version. |
| AI bill PL 2338/2023 | Law | Proposed | Reported as approved by the Senate and pending in the Chamber of Deputies as of that article. We have not confirmed later progress. |
Checked on 2 October 2026 and due for review by 1 January 2027. Many sources are trade press or law-firm summaries rather than official texts, and statuses such as reported or unconfirmed are shown as the source gives them. This is a summary, not legal advice. If something is wrong or out of date, tell us.