Brazilian utility Eletrobras is to develop a data center outside São Paulo.

The company reportedly plans to develop a new campus in the Campinas region of São Paulo, reports BNamericas.

The project is at the initial documentation stage with the Ministry of Mines and Energy (MME), which is the first step before ministerial analysis begins.

The company had not commented by the time of publication.

This would be the first initiative of its kind by the company, which is the largest electricity generation and distribution group in the country. Eletrobras has an extensive energy transmission network that covers the entire country.

Eletrobras currently operates 82 power plants, totaling 44.4 GW of installed capacity, which corresponds to approximately 21 percent of Brazil's electricity generation. The company also manages 74,000 kilometers of transmission lines, equivalent to 37 percent of the National Interconnected System (SIN).

Eletrobras isn't the only company interested in Campinas.

In the same city, Ascenty plans to establish a new unit - Campinas was the site of the inauguration of the company's first data center in 2012 - in a process that is awaiting evaluation for connection to the grid by the Ministry of Mines and Energy (MME).

Aurea Finvest is in negotiations to acquire land in the region with a capacity of more than 350MW, and the holding company Chateau Chambord Empreendimentos e Participações is also developing a data center in Campinas, as part of the Pau D'Alho campus project.

In the nearby cities of Hortolândia and Sumaré, Microsoft is building two data centers. In Sumaré, Odata is also investing in a new facility. Scala has been operating a data center in Campinas since 2021, with an information technology capacity of 7MW.

Eletrobras had already been supplying energy to data centers with high demand and large capacity, although it had not yet started its own projects to develop this type of infrastructure.

An example of this is the Rio AI City project, run by Elea Data Centers. Eletrobras signed a memorandum of understanding with the company, Rio de Janeiro City Hall, Finep, and BNDES, with the aim of ensuring the network infrastructure and energy availability for the mega campus.

The project is expected to reach 1.5GW of capacity by 2028 and 3.2 GW by 2032, in the following phases, with investments estimated at up to 65 billion dollars (346 billion reais). The first stage is scheduled for 2026.

In addition, through its subsidiary CGT Eletrosul, Eletrobras is also involved in the Scala AI City project, located in Eldorado do Sul, Rio Grande do Sul.

During the Brazilian Energy Leaders Forum - Electric Energy, held in April this year, Eletrobras' vice-president, Elio Wolff, pointed out that the company has favorable conditions to act as a supplier of data center services on a global scale.

According to Wolff, the company has a transmission network that covers the entire national territory and has technical knowledge about the most suitable locations for installing these facilities. He added that Eletrobras has the capacity to connect the data centers to the electricity system.