Latin America accelerates AI‑driven data‑center build‑out as 5G and cloud demand surge

The Costa Rica News reports that Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Colombia and Argentina are in the midst of a major data‑center construction wave, driven by 5G rollouts, cloud adoption and the compute‑hungry rise of AI workloads. Brazil leads the region with 195 data‑center projects, backed by a mostly renewable power mix but hampered by taxes and high energy costs; the government is offering incentives tied to green energy use and R&D spending to lure more AI infrastructure. The piece highlights eye‑popping commitments such as TikTok’s US$37.7 billion data‑center investment in Brazil’s Pecém complex, AWS’s more than US$5 billion "Mexico Central" region, and multi‑billion‑dollar cloud regions from Microsoft and AWS in Chile, along with an OpenAI‑linked US$25 billion project that will test the limits of local grids. Environmental groups are already warning about the water and energy footprint of these hyperscale sites, and the article stresses that regulatory certainty, faster permitting and access to renewables will determine which countries capture the next wave of AI data‑center capital.