City Destroyed By Floods Will Become Headquarters For R$ 500 Billion Data Center Mega Project Led By Scala and the Government of Rio Grande do Sul

Written by Romário Pereira de Carvalho Published on 27/04/2025 at 13:21

Créditos: Rafa Neddermeyer/Agência Brasil

Data Center Project Promises To Transform Eldorado Do Sul Into A Tech Hub, But Environmental Impacts Raise Concerns

A year after the floods that devastated the state, the government of Rio Grande do Sul is betting on a new project to boost economic recovery. The municipality of Eldorado do Sul, which was completely destroyed by the natural disaster, was chosen to host the so-called Scala AI City, a city of data centers.

The venture is led by the company Scala, which forecasts an initial investment of R$ 3 billion. According to data accessed by Repórter Brasil, the total investment may reach R$ 500 billion.

The initiative was celebrated by the Secretary of Economic Development of the State, Ernani Polo (PP), who declared: “This is the opportunity to transform Rio Grande do Sul into the new Silicon Valley in Brazil.”

ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW

Environmental Concerns Come To The Fore

Despite the optimism, experts warn of potential environmental impacts. In Brazil, there is still no specific legislation for the environmental licensing of data centers.

This type of venture consumes large volumes of water and energy, in addition to generating a significant amount of electronic waste.

The hydrologist Iporã Brito Possantti emphasized to Repórter Brasil the importance of rigor in environmental studies.

“This type of impact needs to be anticipated in the licensing process. It is important that there is no exemption from these studies because later it will be society, and the governments, who will have to pay to correct and mitigate the impacts. It is a matter of economy and justice,” he stated.

The expectation is that the installed capacity of Scala AI City will reach 4.75 GW, surpassing the generation of Brazil’s fourth largest hydroelectric plant, Jirau, in Rondônia.

With information from Diário do Comércio.

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City Destroyed By Floods Will Become Headquarters For R$ 500 Billion Data Center Mega Project Led By Scala and the Government of Rio Grande do Sul

Data Center Project Promises To Transform Eldorado Do Sul Into A Tech Hub, But Environmental Impacts Raise Concerns

Environmental Concerns Come To The Fore

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City Destroyed By Floods Will Become Headquarters For R$ 500 Billion Data Center Mega Project Led By Scala and the Government of Rio Grande do Sul

Data Center Project Promises To Transform Eldorado Do Sul Into A Tech Hub, But Environmental Impacts Raise Concerns

Environmental Concerns Come To The Fore

In the cold desert of Ladakh, where it hardly rains, engineer Sonam Wangchuk created the ice stupa, a tower that freezes winter water and stores it for irrigating crops in the spring, a simple engineering feat that mimics nature.

Almost 6,000 residents live concentrated along a single street nearly 9 km long in the interior of Poland. Houses form a continuous row, and behind them, narrow agricultural strips emerge, creating one of the most unusual rural patterns in Europe.

Júlia Pimentel, an 11-year-old from Minas Gerais, independently invented a new formula to calculate the square root using simple addition and multiplication, and her method was published in one of the most important mathematical scientific journals in Brazil.

They planted a sea of eucalyptus to produce cellulose, but the monoculture turned into a green desert, dried up springs and rivers, and pushed families out of regions in Minas Gerais and Bahia.

Chinese woman planted trees for decades while sand buried part of her house, received $5,000 from an American in 1999, and helped transform the desert into a forest of 8 million trees in China.

Heir bought 23,000 degraded acres in the Scottish Highlands, fenced the area, planted nearly 1 million native trees, and transformed empty mountains into a forest officially recognized after meeting 15 evaluation criteria over 20 years.

The Atacama Desert, the driest place on Earth, was covered in flowers and turned into a colorful carpet with more than 200 species in the phenomenon called “desert bloom,” when atypical rains awaken seeds that had remained dormant in the soil for many years.

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