Brazil Data Center Capacity to Reach 5,576 MW by 2033 as 38 GW of Grid Requests Meets a Seven-Year Transmission Queue — Pheonix Research

SÃO PAULO, 23 October 2026 — Brazil’s data centre market holds 1,000 MW of commissioned IT capacity across 205 operating facilities in 2026 and reaches 5,576 MW by 2033, a 27.83% compound annual growth rate, according to a new market report published today by Pheonix Research. In value terms the market absorbs USD 1.15 billion of capital in 2026 and USD 5.00 billion in 2033 — a 23.36% CAGR and USD 18.85 billion cumulative across the forecast window.

The report’s central finding is a distinction the market routinely collapses. Brazil’s electricity system has received data centre grid connection requests totalling 38 GW, confirmed by the Ministry of Mines and Energy. That figure is 17.22% of the 220.7 GW of centralised generating capacity installed across the national interconnected system, and 38 times the commissioned IT capacity actually operating in the country. It is a measure of applications filed, not of capacity contracted, financed or built.

Only 18.53% of the queue has cleared the gate

Of the queued volume, 7,040 MW has cleared an access award in the first 2026 PNAST round — 18.53% of the total, carrying an estimated R$159 billion of associated investment. Ministry data record 52 access requests, 18 approved and 34 still under evaluation. Industry participants put requests that survive technical filtering at roughly 8 GW, or 21.05% of the volume filed. If every request received a favourable access opinion, accumulated maximum demand would reach approximately 13.2 GW by 2035 — 34.74% of the queued total.

“The gap between 38 GW and 13.2 GW is the width of the gate, not pessimism,” the report states. “A market sized on the queue would be sized on applications. This report sizes what can be observed.”

The binding constraint is the line, not the capital

A data centre in Brazil reaches operating capacity in 18 months to two years. A transmission project takes five to seven. That ratio of 3.5 to 4.7 is structural rather than cyclical, because the missing asset is a line the operator does not own and cannot finance into existence on its own schedule.

Brazil’s generation is among the cleanest in the world, but it sits where the wind and sun are — the Northeast, and increasingly Bahia and Rio Grande do Norte — while load historically sat in the Southeast. Data centres arriving in interior São Paulo or Ceará are therefore commissioning transmission rather than plugging into spare capacity. Where the line does not exist, operators build it: Ascenty is constructing a 32-kilometre line from a CPFL substation in Santa Bárbara d’Oeste to its Sumaré campus, secured through an ONS access opinion. Where the line exists but is congested, load moves to the generation, as at Renova’s Alto Sertão III wind complex in Bahia.

The result is visible in vacancy. National vacancy stands at 4%, with 56% of new stock under construction already pre-leased — but submarket vacancy runs from 1% in Campinas to 40% in Porto Alegre. That dispersion is what a market looks like when power access, not demand, decides where capacity lands.

Two capacity numbers that reconcile

The 205-facility count and the 706 MW mid-2026 measure are not contradictory. The Ministry number counts all facilities, including enterprise sites that are not for sale. The colocation and hyperscale estate alone measured 706 MW at mid-2026, with 106 MW delivered in the first half and 134 MW scheduled in the second, putting the leased market at roughly 840 MW at year-end. Concentration is moderate: Ascenty, ODATA and Scala hold 70% of operational colocation capacity.

Redata turns a tax suspension into a set of commitments

Redata, enacted as Law 15.504 on 15 September 2026 and amending Law 11.196/2005, suspends PIS/Pasep, Cofins, IPI and import tax on qualifying electronic and ICT goods destined for a beneficiary’s fixed assets, converting the suspension to a zero rate once commitments are met and the asset is in service. Habilitation is conditional on: at least 10% of effective processing, storage and data handling capacity made available to the domestic market, or a further 10% of equipment value invested in research and development instead; 100% of electricity demand met from renewable or low-emission sources; water usage effectiveness of 0.05 L/kWh or better, measured annually and publicly reported; and investment equal to 2% of equipment value in research, development and innovation, with at least 40% directed to the North, Northeast and Centre-West. Establishments in those three regions have the domestic-supply and reinvestment commitments reduced by 20%.

Benefits run five years, but the tax suspensions on PIS/Pasep, Cofins and IPI produce effects only until 31 December 2026. Non-compliance means paying the suspended taxes with interest and penalty, followed by suspension and cancellation of the habilitation, with a two-year bar on re-admission.

Three developments decide how much of the queue converts

The batch access seasons introduced by PNAST in 2025 replace first-come-first-served queuing; the first 2026 window ran from 1 to 15 June, with a competitive process for contested points between 28 September and 8 October 2026. The Redata compliance terms set above determine which projects are financeable at all. And the pace at which self-build of transmission by operators is admitted determines how many sites can bypass the queue entirely.

The full report, Brazil Data Center Market Size, Share & Forecast 2026–2033, is available at pheonixresearch.com. It is published alongside Pheonix Research’s global coverage of the data center construction and power supply markets, which size the two inputs that constrain Brazilian capacity — buildings and grid equipment.

About Pheonix Research

Pheonix Research publishes market intelligence built from primary and officially published data, with every load-bearing figure attributed to its source. Its Brazil data centre coverage reconciles Ministry of Mines and Energy access records, ONS and EPE documentation, JLL’s supply survey and company disclosures rather than relying on a single market measure.