Federal prosecutors and public defenders are trying to stop the TikTok data centre at Pecém from switching on. On September 4, 2026, the federal prosecutors' office (MPF) and the federal public defender (DPU) filed a civil action against Omnia and the state environmental agency Semace; after the court's first order, the state of Ceará and the municipality of Caucaia were added as defendants. Their central argument is that Semace licensed the project through a simplified environmental report (RAS), a route meant for low or medium impact works such as go-kart tracks and rodeo grounds, rather than a full EIA/Rima. The action says the preliminary licence allowed 19,700 litres of water a day and the installation licence 144,000 litres, drawn from groundwater in a region that has declared water emergencies in 16 of the last 21 years and where nearby communities depend mostly on wells. The site is about two kilometres from the Lagamar do Cauípe protected area, which partly overlaps Anacé Indigenous land under study by Funai, and according to the lawsuit Omnia said it did not consider prior consultation of the Anacé an obligation.
Inside the export processing zone (ZPE) of the Pecém Industrial and Port Complex, in Caucaia on the Fortaleza metropolitan coast, Omnia, the data centre arm of the asset manager Pátria Investimentos, is building what Brazilian outlets call the largest data centre in the country, with TikTok owner ByteDance as its client. Works began on January 6, 2026, with vegetation clearance and earthmoving. Canaltech reports two main buildings of 150MW each, the first due in 2027 and the second in 2028; Poder360 reports a first phase of 200MW of IT capacity drawing about 300MW. The total investment is put at R$200 billion over ten years, more than R$100 billion of it for equipment, and the national ZPE council approved five data centres at Pecém in November 2025. Because it sits in a ZPE, all its processing is for export, serving users outside Brazil. It is a different scale from what the state already had: Ascenty's Fortaleza 1 at Maracanaú, 30 kilometres from the submarine cable landings at Praia do Futuro, has 9,000 square metres and 10MW and has operated since 2015. The lawsuit describes the Pecém site as about 70 hectares; Poder360 gives 34 hectares near the CE-348 highway, between Caucaia and São Gonçalo do Amarante.
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Power comes under a 20-year, US$2 billion self-production agreement with Casa dos Ventos announced in May 2026, in which Omnia becomes a partner in the wind farms, drawing mainly on the 630MW Ibiapaba wind complex being built in Ceará and partly on the Dom Inocêncio farm in Piauí. The companies say the operation will run on 100 percent new clean energy, a condition of the ZPE tax benefits, and will not compete with local supply or push up tariffs. Canaltech notes the campus will also have 120 diesel generators as backup, and that the five Pecém projects together would reach about 1 gigawatt, which it put at two-thirds of Ceará's generation.
The two institutions want a court order stopping Semace from issuing the operating licence, and the company from energising the site, until the Anacé are consulted and a full impact study is done. Omnia said the project has "solidez técnica e jurídica" (technical and legal soundness), that all its permits were validly issued, and that it had not been formally served. Semace said it had not been notified. TikTok said it would not comment because it is not a party to the case.
Projects not tied to an area
Sites whose records name no county. Everything else is on the pages listed above.
Ceará3
| Project | Company | Status | Power | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ByteDance Ceara Campus (Brazil, Omnia)CearaExact site not confirmed | Casa dos Ventos | Under construction | 300 MW | |
| Ascenty FortalezaMaracanau | Ascenty (Digital Realty) | 10 MW | ||
| Scala Fortaleza (Ceara) | Scala Data Centers (DigitalBridge) | Under construction | 7.2 MW | Source off site ↗ |
Where this comes from
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Every project above is drawn from public records, filings and local reporting. Each row links to what it is based on. Statuses change, so check the source date before you rely on one. Found something wrong? Write to [email protected] and it gets fixed.