Brazil invests 2.3 billion reais in two AI supercomputers with Chinese and U.S. firms

Brazil announced on August 20, 2026, a major investment of approximately 2.3 billion reais, about 444 million U.S. dollars, to build two artificial intelligence supercomputers, splitting the projects between Chinese and American technology firms in a deliberate strategy to avoid dependence on a single supplier or country. The plan, unveiled by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's government, marks the largest sovereign AI compute commitment in Latin America.

The larger portion of the funding, 1.3 billion reais, will support a supercomputing infrastructure project in Rio de Janeiro developed in partnership with Chinese companies Huawei Technologies and iFlytek. This system is intended primarily for training large language models, with the cooperation agreement scheduled to begin in July 2027. The second project, a competitive tender worth about 1 billion reais, will be located in the northeastern state of Rio Grande do Norte. Officials expect U.S. chipmaker Nvidia to win this contract, and the resulting machine is anticipated to rank among the world's ten most powerful AI processing systems. Operations for this facility are targeted for the end of 2027.