I Squared Capital, a Miami-based global infrastructure investment manager with 55 billion dollars in assets under management, has agreed to acquire Elea Data Centers, one of the largest carrier-neutral data center platforms in Brazil. The investment will support Elea’s planned expansion program and accelerate the development of large-scale, high-density AI infrastructure nationwide.
Elea operates nine interconnected data center campuses nationwide across São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Brasília, serving enterprise and hyperscale customers. The platform holds over 300 megawatts of powered land with more than one gigawatt currently in development, requiring more than 10 billion dollars in capital to support delivery. Elea operates entirely on renewable energy and includes the Rio AI City development, a project targeting more than three gigawatts of AI-focused capacity.
Brazil is the largest data center market in Latin America and remains structurally underpenetrated relative to more mature economies, supported by more than 180 million internet users and accelerating demand for cloud storage, local inference, and AI training compute. The country benefits from low-cost, predominantly renewable power and established hyperscaler availability zones. I Squared will partner with Elea’s founder-led management team and long-term platform partner Piemonte Holding. I Squared Capital has invested more than 3 billion dollars across seven investments in Latin America since 2015.
KEY QUOTES:
“Elea represents a compelling, ground-level opportunity to build a scaled digital infrastructure platform in one of the fastest-growing data center markets globally. The company combines a national colocation footprint, a substantial and well-located powered landbank, including its Rio AI City development, which provides a strong foundation for capacity expansion.”
Gautam Bhandari, Chief Investment Officer, I Squared Capital
“AI infrastructure is now constrained less by technology and more by access to energy. Brazil is one of the few markets in the world with gigawatt-scale renewable energy available for data center expansion. With this investment, we are scaling a distributed AI infrastructure platform designed to unlock that potential across the country.”
Alessandro Lombardi, President and Founder, Elea Data Centers