Brazil is the riskiest country to build and operate a data center in among the world’s most active data center markets, according to a joint report by a real-estate company and an engineering firm.

While the report’s authors based their judgment on more than a dozen parameters, high energy cost and difficulty of doing business stood out as key risk factors in operating data centers in Brazil.

Other factors that made South America’s largest country the world’s lowest marks as a data center location included high corporate tax requirements, political instability, relative scarcity of educated workforce, low GDP per capita and high inflation in addition to a few others.

Regardless of Brazil’s profile, the report’s authors predict that the majority of growth in the region in 2012 will happen there and in Mexico.

“Regional growth will be led by Brazil and Mexico, where favorable monetary and fiscal policies being put in place will stimulate stronger demand in the second half of 2012,” the report, titled Data Center Risk Index 2012, reads.

The study was put together by the real-estate brokerage Cushman and Wakefield and the engineering company hurleypalmerflatt.

Brazil performed well in the categories of labor costs, sustainability and water availability. The latter is a major risk factor for data center operators in countries like the UK, Germany, Qatar, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Africa, Poland, the Czech Republic, China and India.

India is the second riskiest country for data centers, according to the report. In addition to water availability, major risk factors there are high energy costs, difficult business environment, high corporate taxes, high possibility of natural disasters, scarcity of educated workforce, energy insecurity, low GDP per capita and high inflation.

While the Indian data center market is poised for rapid growth over the next five years, power security is a significant consideration there, the report reads. The authors explain this by a “lack of diversity of energy imports and increasing reliance on imported oil.”

High barriers to entry into the market, such as restrictions on foreign ownership make India the world’s most difficult country to do business in, the report concludes.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, the report placed US as the least risky country for data centers, followed by the UK, which in turn is followed by Germany. Iceland and Canada complete the list’s top-five.