By Carolina Nalin – O Globo

Joint initiative with Nvidia will develop and test technologies for sectors such as oil and gas, energy, and mining

Deloitte has inaugurated its first Smart Solutions Center (SSC) in the world in Rio de Janeiro, in partnership with Nvidia. The center will be dedicated to developing, testing, and implementing technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), edge computing, and digital twins, primarily serving companies in the oil and gas, energy, and mining sectors.

The project was inaugurated last Friday with the opening of its office in the Porto Maravalley area, in downtown Rio, a technology and innovation hub established by the city government in the Port Zone.

The decision to locate the center in Rio took into account the concentration of major energy companies investing in research and development (R&D), as well as the presence of startups, universities, and technology-related research institutes, according to Patrícia Muricy, leader of the Smart Solutions Center and Deloitte Brazil’s Energy, Resources & Industrials (ER&I) practice.

The unit will initially have a team of 15 to 20 professionals, including specialists in strategy, information technology and operations, architecture, connectivity, cybersecurity, AI governance, and finance. Depending on project needs, the team will also be able to draw on another 300 Deloitte specialists dedicated to AI.

The center aims to support projects from problem definition and business model development through technology testing and implementation. In addition to developing prototypes, the team will assess the financial feasibility of solutions, security and governance requirements, and their potential for deployment in larger-scale operations.

— The idea is to work on strategy and defining digital transformation, better structuring the business case from a financial perspective, and having a technical team capable of implementing and prototyping solutions with predictability regarding their scalability, security, and governance — Patrícia explains.

AI Laboratory for Industry

For Flávio Loução, operations leader of Deloitte Brazil’s Smart Solutions Center, the center’s main advantage is its ability to serve as a kind of sandbox for clients — an isolated and secure environment in which technologies can be tested and developed before being deployed in real-world operations. This is particularly relevant in sectors such as energy, oil and gas, and mining, where technological failures can affect critical operations and pose safety risks.

— Our idea is to bring clients in to co-create and deliver quick results. Our approach is that nothing we do there should take more than two months.

In addition to serving Brazilian companies, the consultancy expects to leverage its Rio hub both to adapt technologies developed in other countries and to bring locally developed solutions to international markets. According to company data, Deloitte has nearly 500,000 professionals across more than 150 countries.