Scala Data Centers, owned by DigitalBridge, plans a huge AI data center campus called Scala AI City on about 700 hectares in Eldorado do Sul, across Lake Guaíba from Porto Alegre. It would start with a R$3 billion, 50-megawatt building and could grow to about 5 gigawatts. On September 3, 2026, the national electricity regulator Aneel authorized it to connect straight to the 525-kilovolt Guaíba transmission line, for demand of up to 1.8 gigawatts by 2033. Its environmental license is pending before the state agency Fepam.
Scala applied to Fepam in May and says building could start in 2027, with the first unit running between late 2028 and early 2029, if its licenses come on time. Ambiental Media reported that a 2024 agreement with the state promised "simplified environmental licensing," which skips a full impact study; the state says there will be no relaxing of legal requirements. State deputy Matheus Gomes, who chairs a legislative panel on data centers, said 1.8 gigawatts is 40% more than all the state's homes use on average: "The licensing needs to be rigorous."
Eldorado do Sul was the town worst hit by the 2024 floods and went weeks without power. Residents told Ambiental the local grid is already unreliable. "The power goes out all the time, on and off several times a day," said Úrsula Silva Pedroso, who lives in the town center, and people in the Guaíba City subdivision, 4 kilometers from the site, blocked a road for 14 days over regular outages. Fepam said it may ask Scala for more information and additional studies.
Projects not tied to an area
Sites whose records name no county. Everything else is on the pages listed above.
Rio Grande do Sul1
| Project | Company | Status | Power | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scala Porto Alegre HyperEdge (Navegantes) | Scala Data Centers (DigitalBridge) | Not reported |
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