TikTok, one of the world’s most popular social networks, announced on Wednesday that it will build its first data center in Latin America in Brazil, next to the city of Fortaleza, with an investment of $38 billion. The Chinese company’s supercomputers, which revolutionized the Internet with short-form videos watched by hundreds of millions of Internet users, will be powered in 2027 and “will be powered exclusively by 100% renewable energy,” according to TikTok’s note. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva participated in the presentation of the project, which, according to the company’s public policy director, Monica Ghez, “reflects the company’s commitment to Brazil, one of the most dynamic digital markets in the world.”
The agenda adopted by Lula in the past 36 hours clearly demonstrates diplomatic efforts aimed at maintaining Brazil’s relevance at the international level and remaining true to its tradition of defending multilateralism. To avoid being drawn at all costs into the growing hostility between the two superpowers, the United States and China, which are also the second and first trading partners, respectively.
The leftist president welcomed this investment by the Chinese technology company a day after he spoke by phone with Donald Trump for the fourth time since he and the US President met in person in September at the United Nations. Since that greeting, they have had an in-person meeting and two calls. “There is good chemistry,” Lula considers. The Brazilian thanked his counterpart for easing customs duties and urged him to cancel them.
TikTok’s data center in Brazil will be powered using wind energy, coming from the parks that will also be built, according to the company. The company explains that it will use a closed water circuit to cool the supercomputers and that it will not use power from the electrical grid, “to avoid impacts on domestic supply” and “reinforce a commitment to energy transformation and decarbonisation of the global economy.”
Lula’s government is campaigning to attract big tech companies’ growing data center businesses to Brazil, where artificial intelligence has dramatically increased cloud hosting needs. This investment by TikTok supports this effort that uses the wide range of clean energy that the South American country offers as a draw.
The data center project has been accompanied by controversy due to complaints from Anasi indigenous people, who consider that the facilities will remain on their traditional lands and, therefore, should have been formally consulted. Both TikTok and its local partners say they are complying with the regulations.
The new business and data center will generate about 4,000 direct and indirect jobs. The location of the facilities in the Becem port complex next to Fortaleza is strategic because the capital of the state of Ceara is the point through which most submarine Internet cables enter Brazil.
In this line of seeking to achieve a delicate balance between Beijing and Washington, among other events carried out by President Lula last Wednesday, the American company General Motors launched the production of electric cars in Brazil. Meanwhile, Chinese BYD cars and dealers are proliferating on the streets of this country. The leader of the Brazilian left, who rules with a broad coalition, confirmed that he will run for re-election in 2026.