Brazil seeks data center growth as costs, bottlenecks pose hurdles

As the Brazilian Congress prepares to consider the data center tax incentive program, the country is seeking to capitalize on growing constraints and resistance to new facilities in the U.S. But while Brazil has advantages that could help attract investment, they may not be enough to offset the high cost of data center projects, according to experts. Another concern is ensuring that tax incentives can be properly measured and shown to deliver results.

A study by FGV Projetos, the consulting arm of Fundação Getulio Vargas, led by executive manager Charles Schramm, shows that leading international data center hubs have combined natural advantages with regulatory predictability and competitive tax conditions. In the U.S., data centers have increasingly come under criticism over issues including noise and visual pollution and higher energy and water costs.

In Brazil, one of the main disadvantages is the tax burden on imported equipment, which accounts for the largest share of a data center’s investment. Proposed by the federal government, the Special Tax Regime for Data Center Services (Redata) seeks to reduce this cost by suspending federal taxes on such equipment. The state-level Tax on Circulation of Goods and Services (ICMS), however, would not be covered by the regime.

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has identified approval of the program as one of the government’s priorities. On Wednesday (26), Senate President Davi Alcolumbre, after meeting with Lula and House Speaker Hugo Motta, signaled for the first time that he wants to put the proposal to a vote next week.

Brazil is currently Latin America’s largest data center market, accounting for between 37% and 48% of the region’s capacity, depending on the methodology used. The country has between 750 megawatts (MW) and 1 gigawatt (GW) of installed capacity, according to a survey by Andriei Gutierrez, president of the Brazilian Association of Software Companies (ABES). The figure is considered low. With Redata, the government and industry are working with the possibility of reaching 3 GW by 2032, with investments of up to R$100 billion a year.

The incentive is designed precisely to reduce some of the costs needed to make expansion viable. Redata brings forward tax relief mechanisms included in the tax reform. Starting in 2027, the Contribution over Goods and Services (CBS) will fully replace social taxes PIS and Cofins. Redata, however, will continue to cover import duties on equipment, which are not part of the new value-added tax (VAT) created by the reform. ICMS, meanwhile, will gradually be replaced by the Tax on Goods and Services (IBS) through 2033.

The design of Redata seeks to provide greater predictability for investments, according to Uallace Moreira, secretary of industrial development, innovation, trade, and services at the Ministry of Development, Industry, Foreign Trade, and Services (MDIC). The program guarantees a five-year suspension of import duties on eligible equipment, even if equivalent products begin to be manufactured domestically during that period. The list of eligible equipment will be defined later through regulations.

The national program, however, would not by itself eliminate the cost disadvantage. The FGV study estimates that a 100-MW data center requiring a $5 billion investment costs 26.7% more to build in Brazil than the U.S. benchmark. With Redata, the gap would narrow to 17.7%, while cost parity would only be achieved if ICMS were also reduced.

Schramm cites Singapore, where restrictions on new data center projects pushed investment into Malaysia, and Ireland, where limits on connections in the capital Dublin shifted investment to other European countries. “Capital in this industry doesn’t wait: decisions are made within short windows, comparing jurisdictions,” he said.

The incentive policy also involves a dilemma: the government is giving up tax revenue to attract projects, but it needs assurances that the tax break will generate tangible returns for the country.

To that end, Redata includes requirements intended to increase the impact of investments in Brazil, such as allocating at least 10% of processing capacity to the domestic market and investing 2% of the value of eligible equipment in research and development, with part of that investment directed to the North, Northeast and Central-West regions.

Schramm of FGV also advocates tying the incentive to capacity that is actually installed and operational, rather than to investment promises; providing transparency on the tax revenue forgone for each beneficiary; and establishing auditable targets and periodic assessments. “That, to me, is at the heart of the debate,” he said. “An incentive without objective criteria, measurement, and a time limit is neither fiscally nor politically sustainable.”

As for the potential benefits, FGV estimates that a single 100-MW AI-focused data center would mobilize about R$25 billion and generate more than 12,500 direct and indirect jobs during construction alone, as well as R$1.5 billion in gross domestic product (GDP), with spillover effects on construction, energy, telecommunications, and services.

Luciano Fialho, vice president of Scala Data Centers, said the delay in Redata has already affected short-term investment decisions. The company had planned to invest between R$1 billion and R$2 billion a year before the program was announced, but some of those investments were put on hold amid expectations of changes to the tax regime.

Scala, a pioneer in Latin America’s digital infrastructure sector, has already invested R$14 billion in the region, including R$12 billion in Brazil. Fialho said the absence of Redata would not prevent investments supported by domestic demand from continuing, but would limit Brazil’s potential to attract international projects.

Schramm takes a similar view. Even without incentives, he said, Brazil’s market will continue to expand on demand for cloud computing and artificial intelligence. “The real competition is elsewhere. It’s for international processing workloads, which is what turns a country from an infrastructure consumer into an exporter of digital services. That’s the portion that will go wherever the conditions are better,” he said.

Some of that demand could come from the U.S. Fialho believes the country will not be able to expand its infrastructure at the same pace as demand because of power constraints and local opposition, among other factors. “Demand isn’t going to wait for the U.S. to solve this problem. Some of it will come down to Brazil,” he said.

Energy is one of Brazil’s main advantages in this competition, since data centers, particularly those supporting artificial intelligence, require large amounts of electricity. According to ABES, 92% of Brazil’s electricity generation mix is renewable, compared with 25% in the U.S. and about 30% globally.

Brazil can have surplus generation, while in competing markets grid saturation can mean new projects wait seven to 10 years for a connection with enough capacity to operate. Brazil’s advantage, however, does not eliminate domestic transmission and grid-connection bottlenecks.

Entering the global data center investment race later also gives Brazil a chance to learn from mistakes early movers made. Gutierrez points to the need to consider more modern technologies for water use in cooling systems, land use, traffic during construction, and potential impacts on local communities. He notes that Brazil has a robust legislative and institutional framework to support sustainable growth in these areas.

*By Giordanna Neves — Brasília

Sourcee: Valor International

https://valorinternational.globo.com/