# Elea Founder: Brazil Expansion to Accelerate After I Squared Deal — retained record

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source: [news](https://highsignal.app/data/news) (news:datacenterknowledge)  published 2026-04-29 17:19 ingested 2026-04-30 08:09

[original source ↗](https://www.datacenterknowledge.com/deals/elea-founder-brazil-expansion-to-accelerate-after-i-squared-deal)

## extract

Elea Founder: Brazil Expansion to Accelerate After I Squared Deal
The acquisition of Elea Data Centers by I Squared Capital will fuel the Brazilian digital infrastructure operator’s expansion plans, according to the company’s founder.
Investment firm I Squared Capital announced yesterday (April 28) that it had acquired a majority stake in Elea Data Centers for an undisclosed sum, in a deal that aims to accelerate the Brazilian operator’s expansion.
Rio de Janeiro-based Elea operates nine data center campuses across Brazil, with more than 300 MW of powered land and more than 1 GW in development. In addition to existing facilities in the metro hubs of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Brasília, the company is currently developing Rio AI City, an ambitious AI data center project with up to 3.2 GW of renewable energy capacity.
Speaking to Data Center Knowledge this week, Alessandro Lombardi, founder and chairman of Elea Data Centers, says the company’s acquisition will fuel the operator’s expansion plans.
“The acquisition gives Elea added scale, long-term capital, and global infrastructure expertise at an important moment for the market,” Lombardi said. “Domestically, our immediate priority is accelerating expansion across Brazil, where demand for cloud, colocation, and AI capacity continues to rise faster than available supply in many markets.”
Elea says Rio AI City will feature up to 3.2 GW of renewable energy capacity upon completion. (Image: Elea Data Centers)
Domestic and International Expansion
Lombardi said Brazil remains Elea’s core focus, due to its “size, connectivity, and renewable energy profile.” However, the founder also pointed to increasing demand for regional digital infrastructure strategies across Latin America.
“Many customers increasingly want regional strategies rather than single-country deployments,” he said. “Elea’s platform is well-positioned to support that over time, whether through interconnection, partnerships, or selective expansion opportunities aligned with customer demand.”
He added that Brazil’s position in the global digital infrastructure landscape is continuing to strengthen, driven by a combination of large-scale domestic demand, strong connectivity, and abundant renewable energy resources.
“Brazil is already the leading digital infrastructure market in Latin America, but we believe its global relevance is only increasing. It combines large-scale domestic demand, strong subsea and terrestrial connectivity, established cloud availability zones, high-skilled professionals, and one of the most attractive renewable energy profiles among major growth markets. Few countries offer that combination at scale.”
“For international cloud providers and hyperscalers, Brazil is no longer simply a market to serve locally,” Lombardi added. “It is increasingly a strategic location for expansion, AI workloads, and long-term regional growth.”
Scaling AI Infrastructure
Elea was founded by Piemonte Holding in 2018 with the vision to “transform Brazil’s digital infrastructure.” It opened its first data center in Rio in 2019 and expanded to São Paulo the following year.
As a pioneer in sustainable infrastructure in Latin America, Elea says it operates entirely on renewable energy and is focused on delivering efficient, low-carbon solutions at scale.
According to the companies, I Squared’s investment will support Elea’s planned expansion program and accelerate the development of large-scale, high-density AI infrastructure across Brazil.
Lombardi also outlined how the company is approaching the challenge of scaling AI infrastructure sustainably, particularly as demand moves toward increasingly larger scale deployments.
“Meeting gigawatt-scale demand requires thinking beyond the data center itself and planning around the broader energy ecosystem,” he said. “Brazil has one of the world’s strongest renewable generation profiles, and Elea’s strategy is to align future growth with markets where clean power availability, transmission access, and long-term scalability can be secured together.
“That means prioritizing locations with robust grid potential, designing campuses for phased expansion, and deploying efficient technologies that reduce resource intensity as workloads grow. Projects like Rio AI City are being developed with that long-term model in mind: large-scale capacity, renewable-powered operations, and infrastructure designed to scale responsibly over time.”
Rapidly Expanding Market
Brazil is the largest data center market in Latin America and a rapidly emerging global hub for digital infrastructure, supported by more than 180 million internet users and accelerating demand for private and public cloud storage.
According to Cushman & Wakefield, Brazil hosts 23 data center operators and more than 1.6 GW of potential capacity. In addition to Elea, data center companies Equinix, Scala Data Centers, and ODATA also have a presence in Brazil.
“The Brazilian market is heavily concentrated among large players, reflecting the maturity and high level of investment required for new projects,” the research firm said in a recent market report.
According to Gautam Bhandari, Chief Investment Officer at I Squared Capital, Elea represents a “compelling, ground-level opportunity” to build a scaled digital infrastructure platform in one of the fastest-growing data center markets.”
I Squared Capital has invested more than $3 billion in Latin America since 2015. The company has invested in several data center adjacent firms, including nLighten, Conrad Energy, and BDx.
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