The largest substation dedicated to a data center campus in Brazil further strengthens Scala’s ability to support the increasing demand for data center capacity, showcasing the company’s commitment to the consolidation of Brazil as one of the global hubs that will support the Artificial Intelligence (AI) development and its astonishing demand for ML (Machine Learning) and training workloads.
Scala Data Centers, a leading Latin American sustainable data center platform for the hyperscaler market, operating in Brazil, Chile and Colombia, has announced the groundbreaking of the SSUBTB03 power substation, a monumental project with a capacity of 560 MW, at its flagship Tamboré Campus.
This strategic investment, which will enable a monthly energy consumption greater than that of the entire country of Nicaragua, exceeds US$80 million. This is the result of almost three years of relentless hard work involving a multidisciplinary group with support from the government and reinforces Scala’s commitment to operational excellence and customer satisfaction by enhancing the power reliability and resiliency of the campus, as well as providing an avenue for major cloud and content providers to grow.
The Energy Research Company (EPE), which is responsible for the planning of the energy sector in Brazil, has identified a high demand for data center connections in the last two years. The SSUBTB03 substation surpasses all other data center connection requests registered with the Ministry of Mines and Energy (MME). This significant capacity is even more impressive given its location in the heart of Brazil’s largest energy consumer market, São Paulo. The MME has authorized the connection of Scala Data Centers to the transmission system through the ordinance issued on October 5, 2023.
The SSUBTB03 substation, which will be completed in two stages, the first of which is scheduled for December 2024, complements the existing SSUBTB01 and SSUBTB02 substations, each with 60 MW capacity.
“A dedicated on-site substation enhances the reliability and quality of the power supply due to its direct connection to the national grid,” states Fabio Yanaguita, Scala’s Director of Energy. “The magnitude of this project is compared to few in the world and is the tip of the spear for a larger initiative that combines the demand of our customers for green data centers to support its ever growing demand for cloud and AI with our vision for the country”, adds Marcos Peigo, Co-Founder and CEO of the company.
“Brazil, with its vast opportunities in the energy sector and ready-to-go transmission grid, is uniquely poised to be among the winners in the AI/ML race. Scala, the same way we understood ahead of others in the region the impact of the pandemic in digital infrastructure demand, are taking a pioneering and bold step again in enabling the development of the AI in Brazil,” reveals Peigo.
Scala has made progress in expanding the Tamboré Campus, delivering the SGRUTB8 site with a remarkable 24MW capacity and the SGRUTB12 site with a 6MW capacity in April. These two newly operational buildings have brought the total number of hyperscaler-dedicated sites in operation to five, besides the one dedicated to large enterprises.
The company has also started constructing the SGRUTB9 and SGRUTB10 data centers, each with 36MW, and its SGRUTB6-7 site, with a projected capacity of 44MW, all single-tenant facilities. It will start SGRUTB11 with 36MW of capacity that will serve multiple customers in three phases of development. For 2025, Scala plans to begin building a new data center cluster with 100MW in critical capacity on the same campus.
With a total IT capacity of 450MW and 17 buildings when fully developed, the Tamboré Campus is the largest in Latin America and is set to be one of the biggest worldwide. It already presents itself as the leading destination of AI/ML workloads, with all of the new buildings showcasing its FutureProof design, enabling densities that will range from 24kW per rack up to 100kW per rack with the adoption of liquid cooling technologies.
With 60MW in new bookings in 2023, Scala starts 2024 with 160MW in total contracted capacity, positioning the company as the market leader in the hyperscale industry. Furthermore, with 75% of its data center capacity having less than three years of operation, Scala also stands out as an industry leader with a modern, state-of-the-art portfolio that will support the industry for decades.
This latest addition to the Tamboré Campus also cements Scala’s position as a leader in sustainable data center practices while facilitating the integration of renewable energy sources into the power grid.
Scala has already committed US$1.6 billion to the campus and is poised to inject an additional US$3 billion into its expansion efforts when fully developed. Looking ahead, with expansion plans spanning all venues in the four countries in Latin America that operates, Scala aims to ramp up its data center launches and expansions to reach a total of US$2 billion by 2024 and 2025.
