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💡 Are Rio’s AI ambitions realistic?
Mayor Eduardo Paes announces plans to turn Rio into Latin America’s biggest data center hub. The early stage pitch will face some hurdles
Letícia Arcoverde
April 30, 2025 • Reading Time: 2 minutes
Can Rio de Janeiro become an AI tech hub?
Petrobras booth at Web Summit Rio. Brazil’s most valuable firm is also based in Rio and is an avid consumer of AI systems. Photo: WSR
Hoping to rebrand Brazil’s tourism capital as a hub for artificial intelligence, Mayor Eduardo Paes of Rio de Janeiro used this week’s opening of tech conference Web Summit Rio to unveil an ambitious plan: creating, in the city’s Olympic Park, a data center and innovation campus dubbed “Rio AI City.”
Still in its early stages, the initiative envisions Latin America’s largest data center cluster at the site built for the 2016 Summer Olympics. It would serve as the cornerstone of a public-private partnership to foster AI-based research and startup activity. The city is also looking to redevelop the port zone of Porto Maravilha — itself a product of Olympic-era urban renewal — into a new hub of tech firms, residential towers, green spaces and entertainment venues.
“We want Rio to be on the global AI map,” Deputy Mayor Eduardo Cavaliere told reporters — noting that the city’s investment agency, Invest.Rio, has opened talks with Brazilian and foreign investors. Delegations have recently traveled to Abu Dhabi and Doha, with another trip to the United States planned.
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