An interesting memorandum of understanding (MoU) has just been announced in Brazil. It aims to support power infrastructure at the Rio AI City project and involves a number of partners – including one that is part of the Google Moonshot initiative.
The partnership includes the Municipality of Rio de Janeiro, Elea (Latin America’s largest electricity generation and transmission company), Axia Energia (the Brazilian utility formerly known as Eletrobras), Light SA (Rio’s leading electrical utility), and Moonshot Factory project Tapestry.
This key agreement apparently formalises a collaboration for Rio AI City, an initiative to transform Rio de Janeiro into one of the world's largest metropolitan green data centre hubs, driving sustainable AI innovation and economic development within the community.
Tapestry is an interesting addition. It’s a team that is part of X, the Moonshot Factory (Google's innovation lab), whose inventors, engineers, designers and makers apply what they call audacious thinking and radical new technology to huge problems – in this case, it seems, enabling a version of the smart grid concept.
Tapestry’s ambitious aim is to make the world’s electric grid visible so everyone can access reliable, affordable and clean energy. Specifically, the Tapestry team is building an AI-powered, unified platform for every job across the grid.
According to the Data Centre Dynamics website, as part of the deal Tapestry will support the evaluation and planning of power infrastructure for AI City. Grid managers on the project will utilise Tapestry’s GridAware tool to examine the state of the physical grid in AI City, then use its Grid Planning Tool to run grid scenarios and map out how to ramp up power capacity while maintaining near-100% reliability.
Elea designed Rio AI City to launch with an initial 1.5 GW of certified renewable energy capacity, delivering immediately, and scaling up to 3.2 GW by 2032.
In August, Elea signed an MoU with the Rio de Janeiro City Hall and Oracle to implement initiatives related to Rio AI City.
Construction work on the project has already commenced. The first data centre building, RJ01, has apparently been built. The second data centre building on the campus, RJO2, is expected to begin delivering 80MW of capacity in 2026.
Third and fourth sites will add a further 120MW. Further developments will take the site to 1.5GW in the first phase, which includes the existing RJ01 building, with the potential to reach up to 3.2GW in future phases.
Data Centre Dynamics claims that renders of the campus suggest that around 27 buildings could be developed at full build-out.
