Scala Data Centers has launched operations at its first data center in Porto Alegre, Brazil.

Dubbed SPOAPA01, the data center has an IT capacity of 4.8MW.

SPOAPA01 is the result of $48 million in investment and will be dedicated to hyperscale customers. The facility is powered by 100 percent certified renewable energy and will have a PUE of 1.4 or less.

Plans for the data center were first shared in October 2022, and said to be developed using Scala's FastDeploy modular design. The whole facility will be leased to a single large content provider.

The data center is located in the Navegantes neighborhood, near other data centers and the Malbec System subsea cable which will soon land in the city and links to Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Buenos Aires.

"We are excited about the inauguration of this new data center, which occupies a strategic position close to data centers that serve telecom operators,” said Marcos Peigo, CEO and co-founder of Scala.

“Despite the obsolete architecture, density, and capacity compared to hyperscale customer standards, these other sites in the region represent relevant points of connection and traffic interest. With this site now in operation, our customers finally have the alternative of a global standard data center to serve the region's growing market, including support for the Buenos Aires region, in Argentina."

Scala, founded in 2020, currently has nine data centers in operation. Four are located at the Tamboré Campus in São Paulo state, Brazil, and the others are distributed across the cities of São Paulo, Campinas (São Paulo state, Brazil), São João de Meriti (Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil), Curauma (Chile), Tepotzotlán (Mexico), and now Porto Alegre.

In November 2023, the company issued $215m in green debenture.

Scala plans to expand its data center footprint to 500MW within the next five years.