Invest.Rio joins the first edition of the summit as Official Host City Partner, as Rio advances as one of the leading destinations for infrastructure prepared for artificial intelligence and investments

Rio de Janeiro will host leaders from the data center, energy, infrastructure, investment, and public sectors for the first edition of the Latin America Data Center Power & Infrastructure Summit (DCPI-LATAM 2026), which will take place on July 14 and 15, 2026, at the Sheraton Grand Rio Hotel & Resort.

Invest.Rio, the investment promotion and attraction agency of the City of Rio de Janeiro, will support the event as Official Host City Partner.

The partnership reflects the increasingly important role of Rio de Janeiro in the Latin American digital infrastructure landscape and the city’s strategy to attract investments, technology, and partnerships capable of driving the next generation of infrastructure focused on artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and data centers.

DCPI-LATAM will bring together the institutions responsible for defining where, when, and under what conditions large data centers will be built, including governments, power generators, transmission operators, regulatory bodies, hyperscalers, data center developers and operators, investors, and financial institutions.

The summit takes place at a time when Latin America is entering a new phase of digital infrastructure development. Projects are evolving from tens-of-megawatts capacity to gigawatt-scale developments, while governments and cities compete to attract investment in artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and hyperscale infrastructure.

Enabling this growth will require coordinated action between power generation, transmission, regulation, infrastructure planning, and project financing.

Rio at the center of Latin America’s digital infrastructure opportunity

Rio de Janeiro has been actively positioning itself as one of the region’s leading destinations for investment in technology, artificial intelligence, and digital infrastructure. Among the city’s main initiatives is Rio AI City, a project that will transform the Olympic Park area into one of the largest data center and artificial intelligence hubs in Latin America.

Powered by certified renewable energy, the project is expected to begin operations with 1.5 GW of capacity, with potential expansion to approximately 3.2 GW in future phases. The project is part of a broader strategy that combines Rio’s access to large-scale renewable energy, international connectivity, skilled labor, universities, and an innovation ecosystem to attract new technology companies and investments.

The president of Invest.Rio, Sidney Levy, will participate in the panel “Moving from Edge to Cloud: Securing Off-takers.” The discussion will address how artificial intelligence, neoclouds, and digitalization are reshaping demand for multi-megawatt data center campuses, as well as analyze how public-private initiatives such as Rio AI City can drive infrastructure development and attract new investments.

Addressing the challenges of infrastructure supporting the AI economy

DCPI-LATAM is structured around five central challenges that will determine the pace and location of data center growth in Latin America:

1. Large-scale energy: expanding and optimizing generation capacity as projects evolve from megawatts to gigawatts.
2. Grid access and interconnection: addressing challenges related to transmission congestion, electricity infrastructure availability, and long timelines for grid connection.
3. Agile governance: aligning licensing, regulation, and infrastructure planning with the speed of expansion of hyperscalers and data center developments.
4. Sustainable foundations: treating water resources, cooling systems, workforce training, and community engagement as essential infrastructure requirements.
5. Large-scale capital: structuring bankable Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs), financing models, and risk allocation mechanisms capable of taking projects from early negotiation stages to financial close.

Over two days, the program will examine how Latin America can transform its renewable energy resources, connectivity expansion, and growing digital demand into viable and commercially sustainable infrastructure.

Discussions will cover topics such as the transition from megawatt-scale to gigawatt-scale energy demand, grid congestion, speed-to-power, public policy, project permitting, advanced cooling technologies, energy market volatility, power purchase agreements (PPAs), financing, supply chains, social license to operate, and the connectivity corridors needed to support future development.

The Latin America Data Center Power & Infrastructure Summit is a pan-regional platform that brings together power producers, grid operators, regulatory bodies, hyperscalers, colocation companies, developers, and financiers to address the infrastructure challenges that determine when, where, and under what conditions data centers are built.

About New Energy Events
Since 2009, New Energy Events has been bringing together the energy and infrastructure markets of Latin America and the Caribbean to accelerate financing and the implementation of clean, reliable, and resilient energy projects across the region.