In the sunbaked hills of Gentio do Ouro, Bahia, where wind turbines spin like giant sentinels, dozens of data centers are quietly being planned — not by tech giants alone, but by the very companies that harvest Brazil’s abundant wind and solar power. As of December 2025, 68 projects were seeking to connect data centers to Brazil’s national grid, and 65% of those requests came from renewable energy firms. These plants already generate more clean electricity than the country’s aging transmission system can handle. When the grid is overloaded, operators order them to shut down — a costly stopgap that in the first half of 2025 cost producers 3.2 billion reais ($617 million). One solar plant had to slash output by nearly 40%. Data centers, with their constant hunger for power, offer a financial lifeline: long-term contracts that guarantee income for surplus energy that would otherwise go to waste.
The Brazilian government sees opportunity. In September 2025, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva signed a law giving tax breaks to data centers that use renewable or low-emission energy and meet water efficiency standards. The following year, Brazil’s foreign trade agency, Apex, held a roundtable in the U.S. to pitch the country as a green haven for Big Tech infrastructure. Renewable energy companies now have a powerful incentive to build data centers near their plants, locking in stable revenue through 15- to 20-year power purchase agreements. “Renewable energy companies are able to sign long-term power purchase agreements with data centers and Big Tech firms,” says Mikaelle Farias, a climate activist and renewable energy engineer at the Federal University of Paraíba. “This guarantees the sale of that surplus for 15 or 20 years without needing to feed it into the interconnected grid or losing the energy.”
But this boom comes with tension. At least 29 municipalities planning data centers are home to Quilombola communities — territories founded by Afro-Brazilians who escaped slavery — or Indigenous groups still fighting for official land rights. In Bahia, a wind company proposed linking its plant to nine data centers near such a community, raising fears of land grabs and broken promises. Critics also question whether surplus renewable energy should power server farms instead of homes, schools, or industries that could help phase out fossil fuels. “Companies say, ‘Look how we are unlocking this renewable energy,’ but they don’t specify the intended use,” says climate analyst Ketan Joshi. “Why didn’t you build a transmission line or a battery or something to have that energy be used by society?”
As Brazil stands at this crossroads, the world is watching. Can clean energy fuel both digital growth and social justice? Or will the promise of profit leave communities behind? The answer may shape how countries balance technology, equity, and sustainability in the decades ahead.