By Luciana Magalhaes and Leticia Fucuchima
SAO PAULO (Reuters) -Omnia, a data center company owned by Brazilian investment firm Patria, said on Monday it has joined the project to develop a 50 billion real ($9.25 billion) data center in Brazil that is expected to have TikTok as its sole client.
Omnia partnered with the Brazilian renewable energy generator Casa dos Ventos to develop the facility, which will be located in the Pecem port complex in the northeastern state of Ceara, executives from both firms told Reuters.
Brazilian government officials have publicly said that TikTok is involved in the project, although ByteDance, the Chinese parent company of the short-video app, declined to comment on the matter.
Sources familiar with the project confirmed to Reuters the data center will have TikTok as its client. Patria and Casa dos Ventos also declined to comment.
With an expected power consumption of 300 megawatts, the project is set to be the largest single-client data center in Brazil, with construction scheduled to begin this year and operations expected to kick off in 2027, according to the executives.
The project will require 50 billion reais in investments, with Omnia expected to fund 12 billion reais in infrastructure, while the remaining investment will be made by the client, targeting information technology equipment such as processing servers, the executives said.
Casa dos Ventos will also invest an additional 3.5 billion reais in the construction of new wind farms dedicated to supply energy for the facility, according to Lucas Araripe, executive director at the firm.
The Brazilian government authorized on Monday the future data center to provide data export services, according to a decision published on the official gazette.
“This will be the first data center focused on exporting data in the country,” Omnia CEO Rodrigo Abreu said.
Brazil has been seeking to position itself as a sustainable hub for data centers given its renewable energy availability. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has also signed a project for federal tax exemptions in the sector.
($1 = 5.4039 reais)
(Reporting by Luciana Magalhes and Leticia Fucuchima in Sao Paulo; Writing by Andre Romani; Editing by Jamie Freed)
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