RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - InfraXmedia has announced the launch of AI Cities Summit LATAM, the first Latin American edition of its global AI Cities Summit Series. The landmark event will take place on May 20-21, 2027, at the Sheraton Grand Rio Hotel & Resort

With more than 25 years at the center of the digital infrastructure ecosystem, InfraXmedia connects operators, technology providers, investors, policymakers, and enterprise leaders through its global media, events, intelligence, and learning platforms. The launch of the Latin American edition, AI Cities Summit | Rio de Janeiro, extends this role into one of the most strategically important questions facing governments and infrastructure markets today: how to plan, power, permit, and finance the next generation of AI-ready digital infrastructure.

As artificial intelligence adoption accelerates, demand for high-density data centers, resilient power infrastructure, renewable energy access, industrial land, and global connectivity is reshaping economic development strategies across Latin America. The AI Cities Summit has been created to address this need by bringing together policymakers, regulators, energy providers, data center operators, technology vendors, capital providers, and infrastructure developers to support more coordinated decision-making around AI infrastructure growth.

The Rio edition will also place a spotlight on the Rio AI City initiative, a city-backed urban development and digital infrastructure project designed by Elea Data Centers to position Rio de Janeiro as a leading technology and AI infrastructure hub in Latin America.

First Latin American edition confirmed in Rio de Janeiro

Rio de Janeiro has emerged as a significant contender in Latin America’s digital infrastructure market, supported by policy alignment, renewable energy access, strategic land availability, and global connectivity through submarine cable infrastructure. For InfraXmedia, these conditions make the city an important case study for how governments can convert AI infrastructure demand into long-term economic development.

Jose Friebel, Chief Growth Officer at InfraXmedia, said the launch reflects both the scale of the opportunity and the complexity governments now face: “The rapid rise of AI infrastructure presents one of the most significant economic opportunities for governments in decades, but also one of the most complex to navigate. Rio de Janeiro is a clear example of what can be achieved with the right alignment of local policy, abundant green energy, and private investment.”

He added that the purpose of the summit is to move beyond discussion and help regional stakeholders understand the models, partnerships, and policy conditions required to compete: “The Latin American edition of the AI Cities Summit will give governments and regional stakeholders direct access to the insights, partnerships, and proven models they need to compete effectively in this new landscape. The summit is designed to support practical decision-making around energy, land, permitting, investment, and infrastructure deployment.”

Institutional support from the Rio Government

The summit has the support of local political leadership, which views the event as a platform to advance Rio de Janeiro’s technology and digital infrastructure ambitions. Through Rio AI City, the city is seeking to combine infrastructure development, investment attraction, and regulatory alignment to strengthen its position in the regional AI economy.

Eduardo Cavaliere, Mayor of Rio de Janeiro, said the summit supports the city’s wider economic development strategy: “Our administration is firmly committed to positioning Rio de Janeiro as a technology capital for Latin America. Through the Rio AI City project, we are creating a more agile regulatory environment and facilitating access to strategic land and global fiber-optic connectivity.”

He said the event would help translate that strategy into regional visibility and investment momentum: “This summit will strengthen Rio de Janeiro’s position as a destination for major technology and infrastructure investment, and as a regional forum where the future of AI infrastructure in Latin America can be defined.”

Industry backing from regional and global infrastructure leaders

The development of AI-ready infrastructure in Latin America will require close collaboration between governments, energy providers, data center operators, technology vendors, and capital providers. AI Cities Summit | Rio de Janeiro is designed to provide a neutral convening platform for these groups as the region works through the practical requirements of large-scale AI infrastructure deployment.

For operators, the opportunity is closely tied to the ability to align hyperscale development with sustainability, power availability, and public-private collaboration. Alessandro Lombardi, CEO of Elea Data Centers, said: “Rio AI City has the potential to redefine computational infrastructure in Latin America by combining hyperscale data center development with a strong commitment to sustainability and renewable energy. Delivering the infrastructure required to process future AI workloads will require unprecedented collaboration between the public and private sectors.”

Lombardi said the summit can help turn that collaboration into a more coordinated regional agenda: “The Latin American edition of the AI Cities Summit in Rio de Janeiro can become an important catalyst for aligning power, infrastructure, investment, and technology around the economic development opportunity now emerging across Brazil and Latin America.”

For technology providers, the growth of AI infrastructure brings a parallel requirement to rethink physical infrastructure design, from rack density and critical power to thermal efficiency and liquid cooling. Alex Sasaki, Vice President for Latin America at Vertiv, said: “The arrival of large-scale, high-density artificial intelligence workloads requires a fundamental reassessment of rack density, thermal efficiency, and critical power management. Vertiv’s end -to-end cooling and power management portfolios, deep expertise, and global capabilities make us uniquely qualified to support the AI workloads required by Rio AI City and the wider region, with speed and scale.”

Sasaki: “With industry support, the forum in Rio de Janeiro can be influential in helping align data center technology requirements with grid availability, customer sustainability objectives, and the operational realities of AI infrastructure deployment in Latin America.”

Global strategic collaboration

As a Strategic Partner of the AI Cities Summit Series, Infrastructure Masons will support industry collaboration and knowledge exchange across the global program. Its involvement reflects the series’ broader objective: to connect public-sector ambition with the operational experience of the global digital infrastructure community.

Cyré Mercedes Quiñones, CEO of Infrastructure Masons (iMasons), said the shift to AI-ready cities will depend on coordinated action across industries: “Artificial intelligence is reshaping how future cities will be designed, powered, and connected. Getting this transition right requires deep collaboration between the data center industry, governments, and energy providers.”

She said the Rio edition would contribute directly to that global knowledge exchange: “The AI Cities Summit Series creates an important platform to align stakeholders, share operational best practices, and accelerate the delivery of resilient and sustainable digital infrastructure. The Rio edition will be an important forum for advancing that conversation across Latin America.”

Official launch event scheduled for 11th August, 2026

Ahead of the inaugural event in May 2027, InfraXmedia will convene 180+ senior stakeholders from local, regional, and national governments & civic institutions, energy providers, capital providers, and digital infrastructure leaders for a closed-door summit introducing the AI Cities concept.

Taking place in Rio de Janeiro, the launch summit is designed to foster collaboration and share strategic insights on the current considerations shaping the Rio AI City initiative, with insight from speakers including: Oscar Lima, Secretário de Desenvolvimento Econômico at Prefeitura do Rio de Janeiro; Sidney Levy, President at Invest.Rio; Alessandro Lombardi, Founder & CEO at Elea Data Centers and Alex Sasaki, Vice President of Sales at Vertiv. The full agenda is available to view here.

The half-day program will be followed by a networking cocktail reception and networking lunch, enabling attendees to build connections that drive economic growth forward ahead of the main summit in May 2027.