The New Era of Data Centers: Why the World Is Building So Many — and Brazil’s Role in This Global Landscape.
In recent years, the world has entered a fast‑paced race to build data centers. What used to be a discreet infrastructure, hidden behind major tech companies, has become one of the most strategic pillars of the digital economy.
And Brazil, surprisingly to many, is at the center of this transformation.
In this article, we will explore:
- why so many data centers are being built
- why they are not located only in the home countries of big tech companies
- which companies are leading this movement
- where the main global hubs are
- why China doesn’t appear on some maps
- and who the Chinese giants of this sector are
Get ready: this is a deep dive into the physical heart of the internet.
🚀 Why is the world building so many data centers?
The short answer: because the digital world has exploded.
The full answer involves three massive forces that changed everything.
1. The rise of Artificial Intelligence
AI models — the ones that generate text, images, videos, and analyses — require:
- thousands of GPUs
- industrial‑scale energy
- ultra‑fast networks
- advanced cooling
This is only possible in specialized data centers designed for massive workloads.
2. The full migration to the cloud
Today, virtually everything runs in data centers:
- banking
- e‑commerce
- social networks
- streaming
- government systems
- healthcare
- telecom
- logistics
Every click, every purchase, every message passes through one of them.
3. The exponential growth of data
The volume of data doubles every two years.
With AI, this pace is accelerating even more.
🌍 Why aren’t data centers located only in the home countries of big tech companies?
Even though the internet connects the entire planet, it is not efficient, safe, or legal to centralize everything in one country. Here’s why.
1. Latency: physics still rules
The farther the server, the greater the delay.
For AI, gaming, video conferencing, and financial transactions, this is critical.
That’s why companies build data centers close to users.
2. Digital sovereignty laws
Countries require that data from their citizens remain within national borders.
Examples:
- LGPD (Brazil)
- GDPR (Europe)
- Data laws in India, Indonesia, China, Saudi Arabia
Without local data centers, companies simply cannot operate.
3. Cheap and clean energy
Data centers consume A LOT of energy.
Countries with abundant and inexpensive renewable energy — like Brazil — become natural hubs.
4. Redundancy and resilience
If a country suffers:
- a blackout
- a natural disaster
- a cyberattack
- political instability
other data centers take over the load.
5. Tax incentives
Governments offer:
- tax exemptions
- land
- subsidized energy
- dedicated fiber
This drastically reduces operational costs.
🇧🇷 The data center boom in Brazil
Brazil is experiencing one of the largest investment cycles in data centers in its history.
Massive projects are under construction:
- RT‑One (MG, PR) — 100 to 400 MW per campus
- Elea Data Centers — Rio AI City, up to 3,200 MW
- Scala Data Centers — Scala AI City in RS
- ByteDance (TikTok) — 200 MW in Ceará
- Equinix — expansion in Rio de Janeiro
- ODATA — new centers in São Paulo and Rio
- Ascenty, Tecto, Omnia, Terranova — dozens of projects
Brazil has become attractive for three reasons:
- abundant renewable energy
- strategic position in Latin America
- modern legislation
🗺️ The world’s main data center hubs
The global map includes hubs such as:
- Ashburn (USA) — the world capital of data centers
- Silicon Valley (USA)
- Dallas (USA)
- London, Frankfurt, Amsterdam (Europe)
- Tokyo (Japan)
- Singapore
- Sydney (Australia)
- São Paulo (Brazil)
- Santiago (Chile)
These locations concentrate:
- submarine cables
- stable energy
- major cloud providers
- specialized workforce
🇨🇳 Why doesn’t China appear on some maps?
China has one of the largest data center networks in the world, but it doesn’t appear on global maps for three reasons:
1. China’s internet is partially isolated
The “Great Firewall” restricts:
- entry of foreign services
- data leaving the country
- global interconnection
2. Strict digital sovereignty laws
Data from Chinese citizens cannot leave the country.
3. Infrastructure focused on the domestic market
Chinese data centers serve:
- the government
- local companies
- national platforms (WeChat, Alibaba, Baidu)
They do not participate in the same global interconnection mesh as the US, Europe, and Latin America.
🏆 Ranking of the largest data center operators in China
Here are the giants dominating the sector:
- Alibaba Cloud — national leader, dozens of data centers
- Tencent Cloud — strong in AI and gaming
- Huawei Cloud — focused on government and telecom
- Baidu AI Cloud — specialized in AI
- Chayora — hyperscale with international standards
- ChinaCache — CDN pioneer
- EdgeNext — edge computing for streaming
- DCConnect Global — SDN network
- ChinaNetCloud — infrastructure for e‑commerce
- OneAsia Network — presence across Asia
🔚 Conclusion: the future is distributed, energy‑intensive, and intelligent
The global race for data centers is not just technological — it is geopolitical, economic, and energy‑driven.
They are the invisible infrastructure that supports:
- AI
- cloud
- streaming
- finance
- telecom
- governments
- smart cities
And Brazil, with clean energy and a strategic position, is becoming one of the protagonists of this new era.
If the 20th century was powered by oil, the 21st century is powered by data — and data centers are the refineries of this new world.
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